The Netherlands: A refuge and home to all? A comparative study on the effect of the differing Dutch refugee policies in shaping the socio-economic integration of Syrian and Ukrainian refugees.

Abstract

["" The invasion of Ukraine resulted into millions of Ukrainians seeking refuge in Europe. The mass influx resulted in the EU evoking the Temporary Protection Directive for the first time since its creation, granting Ukrainians the right to work and live in EU host countries, such as the Netherlands. The policies applied to Ukrainians is in stark contrast with policies applying to other refugee groups, such as the Syrians. Even though the Ukrainians are seen as temporary residents, they received a head start in socio-economically integrating into host-countries by gaining access to pillars of integration. In contrast to the Ukrainians, Syrian refugees are considered to reside permanently in the Netherlands and thus are obligated to integrate, however they are denied access to several integration domains until they have fulfilled the Dutch integration programme. This contradiction calls for a thorough analysis of how Syrian refugees experience the differing policies on employment and language in shaping their socio-economic integration in comparison to the experiences of Ukrainians in the Netherlands. This will be done by applying the domains of employment and language from Ager and Strang’s integration framework on the reviewed literature and on the twelve conducted interviews with refugees and experts on refugee integration. The research will be done by looking through the lens of the Human Capital Theory to contribute to the studies of refugee integration. This research finds that the differing policies and their aims form structural barriers to the integration of Syrian and Ukrainians refugees and that even though the policies are different, the experiences of both refugee groups are similar. Syrians experience a negative effect of the employment and language policies on the shaping of their socio-economic integration, because of a delay in access to the labour market and insufficient translation support in learning Dutch. The Ukrainians, who gained immediate access to the labour market, experience the temporality of their refuge and the absence of systematically provided language courses as a structural barrier to their integration. ""]