Trajectories of economic outcomes and adulthood transition of refugee youth and children in Canada

Since the arrival of Syrian refugees in late 2015, several research projects were rapidly deployed to examine the experiences of refugees as well as investigating the responses of host societies. Such rapid research provides valuable insights on the short-term experiences of refugees; however, a longer window of research is required to fully understand the mechanisms of integration. Against this backdrop, we examine how the children of refugee immigrants transition to adulthood and whether their experiences differ from the children of other immigrants. Specifically, we examine whether long-term labour market trajectories and well-being of refugee children and youth converge or diverge from children of other immigrants. We do this by using the Longitudinal Immigration Database (IMDB). The IMDB includes records of individuals who became permanent residents since 1980 and filed tax in Canada at least once since their arrival. Because it can track children into adulthood, the IMDB offers much insight into the life course of newcomers. Focusing on refugees and immigrants who arrived in Canada as children or youths, aged 0 to 17 years old, we examine the trajectories of labour market outcomes and other indicators of adulthood transition up to 35 years later accounting for the 1980 to 2015 period to offer a portrait of people’s integration. Our results serve as a baseline of information for other studies on refugee children and youth in Canada and to compare across refugee and immigrant cohorts.