Between 2015 and 2019, political and economic turmoil in Venezuela forced about 1.8 million people to migrate to Colombia, increasing the country’s population by almost 4 percent. Venezuelan migrants disproportionately found employment in occupations that employ less...
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Life out of the Shadows: Impacts of Amnesties in the Lives of Refugees
This paper estimates the causal effects on wellbeing of a regularization program offered to half a million undocumented Venezuelan migrants in Colombia. Colombia hosts almost two million Venezuelans displaced abroad. The Permiso Especial de Permanencia (PEP) grants...
The Economic Effects of Immigration Pardons: Evidence from Venezuelan Entrepreneurs
This paper analyzes the effect of an immigration pardon on immigrant entrepreneurship, by examining the effect of a pardon granted to about 300,000 undocumented Venezuelan immigrants in Colombia in 2018. Colombia hosts nearly two million Venezuelans, representing...
Attitudes and Policies toward Refugees: Evidence from Low- and Middle-Income Countries
This paper examines the effect of refugee arrivals on attitudes toward immigrants in a global sample of low- and middle-income countries. The authors also explore whether these effects vary across camp and non-camp settings or across situations with progressive and...
Forced Displacement and Asylum Policy in the Developing World
This paper analyzes the correlates of asylum policymaking in low- and middle-income countries, which host more than 85 percent of refugees and asylum seekers globally. The authors also examine the role of de jure policies as pull factors in flows of forced migration....
Global Refugee Work Rights Report
This report assesses refugees’ work rights both in law (de jure) and in practice (de facto) across 51 countries, which together hosted 87 percent of the world’s refugees at the end of 2021. The report also analyses additional factors that are critical to refugees’...
Labor Market Access and Outcomes for Refugees
Labor Market Access and Outcomes for RefugeesRefugees’ right to work is protected by international law but often violated in practice. This Digest discusses the barriers that host governments impose on refugees’ labor market access and reviews the academic research on...
People fleeing conflict don’t want aid – they want work
An article by Björn Gillsäter, Head, World Bank-UNHCR Joint Data Center on Forced DisplacementGabriela Davila is a Venezuelan entrepreneur who arrived in Ecuador 5 years ago. She lives in Quito and, in her bakery, prepares colada morada and guaguas de pan, following...
Platform for Aggregate Statistics on Forced Displacement
Platform for Aggregate Statistics on Forced Displacement Context UNHCR collects a wide range of data from the 137 countries that the organization works in. Efforts to make this data safely available beyond UNHCR are underway with the Microdata Library initiative. As...
To get a clearer picture of internal displacement, we need better data, and more of it
Authored by Björn Gillsäter, Head of the World Bank-UNHCR Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement Today, internally displaced persons (IDPs) account for an estimated sixty percent of forcibly displaced persons globally[i]. Coinciding with escalating levels of...