Is there a refugee gap? Evidence from over a century of Danish naturalizations

Abstract

The “refugee gap”—the difference in the economic status of refugees relative to other migrants might be due to the experience of being a refugee or to government policy. In Denmark before the Second World War, refugees were not treated differently from other migrants, motivating our use of a database of the universe of Danish naturalizations between 1851 and 1960. We consider labor market performance and find that immigrants leaving conflicts fared no worse or even performed better than other migrants within this relatively homogeneous sample of those who attained citizenship. This suggests that refugees and other migrants might be given the same rights if policy aims to ensure economic success.