Labor Market Integration of Refugees: RCT Evidence from Sweden

Last registered on October 11, 2019

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Labor Market Integration of Refugees: RCT Evidence from Sweden
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0004788
Initial registration date
October 10, 2019

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
October 11, 2019, 11:32 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Uppsala University

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
IFAU
PI Affiliation
Swedish Public Employment Service

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2017-03-01
End date
2020-06-30
Secondary IDs
Abstract
The recent large inflows of refugees to many Western countries has spurred a large, and often intense, debate on how to best integrate the refugees into their new countries. Finding successful integration policies is very important from both the refugees' and the host countries' perspective.

In this project we will evaluate a new and uniquely ambitious integration program that was developed and put into effect in Sweden. The aim with the program, run in cooperation by the City of Gothenburg and the Public Employment Office (PES) in Gothenburg, was to get newly arrived refugees to Sweden better integrated (in terms of, e.g., labor market outcomes).

The evaluation will be based on a randomized experiment, in which potential participants in the program in one of the waves were randomly assigned into treatment and control groups.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Dahlberg, Matz, Johan Egerbark and Ulrika Vikman. 2019. "Labor Market Integration of Refugees: RCT Evidence from Sweden ." AEA RCT Registry. October 11. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.4788-1.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
When starting the new type of very ambitious integration program, run in cooperation by the City of Gothenburg in Sweden and the Public Employment Office (PES) in Gothenburg, with the aim to get newly arrived refugees to Sweden better integrated (in terms of, e.g., labor market outcomes), it was decided that there should be 50 slots available in the program for each starting cohort. Our experiment is for the second starting cohort (the starting date for this cohort was April 20, 2017, when prospective participants were called to an information meeting about the program at the Public Employment Service (PES) in Gothenburg. The program started on May 29, 2017.) We use a lottery to decide which of all eligible individuals that should be given the opportunity to participate in the new program.

Intervention Start Date
2017-04-20
Intervention End Date
2019-05-29

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Labor market outcomes (time to employment, type of employment)
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
The outcome variables are all measured via the registers held by the Public Employment Service in Sweden.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Native language development (results on language tests) and adult education (type of education and results) in Sweden.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
The data is given by registers held by the City of Gothenburg

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Given the eligibility criteria for participating in the program (based on the refugees' educational level and time in Sweden), 140 individuals were identified as being potential participants in the program. The eligibility criteria was stated by one of the two organizations running the program, the City of Gothenburg, and the identification of eligible candidates was made by the other responsible organization, the Public Employment Service in Gothenburg.

Out of the 140 potential participants, 70 individuals were randomly drawn to be called to an information meeting about the program. Since we know since earlier that labor market outcomes are strongly correlated with (immigrants') gender in Sweden, we block-randomize based on gender (the randomization make the share of men and women in the treatment group to match their shares in the population). The randomization was made by the analytical unit at the Swedish Public Employment Service in Stockholm. At the information meeting, they were given an explanation of the program and was given an offer to participate in the program. 50 individuals accepted the offer to start in the new program. The 70 individuals that were selected by the lottery to be given an opportunity to participate in the program are all defined to be in the treatment group. We are hence estimating Intention-to-Treat (ITT) parameters.

The 70 eligible individuals that, by randomization, was selected to not participate in the program constitute the control group. They participate in the traditional programs run by the PES in Gothenburg.

In a first step, we will evaluate the short-run effects of the new program on labor market outcomes. Short-run is here meant to be within two years; we will evaluate the effects at different time points within these two years. We take the start of the program on May 29, 2017 as the starting point for the program and May 29, 2019, as the end point for the two year evaluation. The outcome variables are measured via the registers held by the PES in Sweden. We will also evaluate the effects on intermediate outcomes such as native language development and adult education in Sweden.



Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
The randomization was made by the analytical unit at the Swedish Public Employment Service in Stockholm. The random draws were made in a computer (the program was written in Stata).
Randomization Unit
Individuals, stratified on gender
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
2 clusters, males and females
Sample size: planned number of observations
140 individuals
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
70 individuals in treatment group, 70 individuals in control group
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Local Ethical Review Board in Stockholm
IRB Approval Date
2017-09-14
IRB Approval Number
2017/1488-31/5

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials