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Amaral E F L et al.

the host countries, whose national services are facing severe strains. Some host communities have reported decreases in
wages and worsening working conditions due to increased competition for low-skilled and unskilled jobs. This process
contributes to negative perceptions of refugees and migrants in host countries. Reports have shown that native populations
fear migrants mainly because they are concerned with losing their jobs to migrants, as well as due to prospects of decreasing
wages for local habitants and the increasing burden on public services (Klugman, 2009).
Given that the Syrian conflict has already lasted for more than seven years and with no short-term solution in sight,
we conduct an analysis to address the evolving long-term issues of refugees in their host countries. The severity of the
refugee situation is defined not only by displacement duration but also by daily life conditions and the socioeconomic
integration of refugees in the host country (UNHCR, 2004). Thus, host countries should establish long-term strategies to
help integrate refugees into their economies and societies. Fostering opportunities for refugees to build their livelihoods
in host countries are an important component of creating long-term resilience. However, this process is expected to be a
complex one. Refugees are usually not allowed to work in the formal economic sector in their host countries, even though
participation in economic activities is essential to improve and sustain the well-being of individuals and families.
In this study, our objectives were to provide an overview of the situation of Syrian refugees and other non-citizens
living in host countries, as well as to summarize a series of policies and legislation regarding refugees. We explored the
cases of seven host countries: (1) Turkey, which is the main destination of refugees from the Syrian crisis; (2) Germany
and the United Kingdom, which are high-income countries where the public sentiment about refugees has changed
overtime; (3) Greece and Italy, which are countries that share a close border with nations that have large outflows of
refugees; and (4) Canada and Australia, which do not share borders with countries that have significant refugee outflows
but have been dealing with inflows of migrants and refugees in different manners. To this end, we analyzed national data
from the selected host countries to explore attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors toward refugees, as well as to describe labor
market integration. Our study also focused on economic activities that individuals reported, including performing paid
work, engaging in educational activities, and unemployment. We also provided a review of policies and legislation toward
refugees in the selected host countries.
2. Data Sources

This study was sponsored by the Pardee Global Human Progress Initiative within the nonpartisan RAND Corporation
and was conducted between late 2016 and early 2017. We reviewed the existing literature in the selected host countries:
Turkey, Germany, the United Kingdom, Greece, Italy, Canada, and Australia. We also analyzed statistics on migration
flows, attitudes toward refugees, and immigrant integration. The analysis of data on refugees was a challenging endeavor
since information on flows, public services available, and integration of refugees is not systematically collected by the
International Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations. As a strategy to address these difficulties, we explored
cross-sectional data and reports from several sources, as listed in Table 1.
We also investigated individual level data from the most recent European Social Survey (ESS) for each of our selected
European countries: Germany (2014), Greece (2010), Italy (2012), and the United Kingdom (2014). This analysis focused
on main economic activities, which report whether individuals were: (1) Performing paid work, even if away temporarily
(employee, self-employed, and working for family business); (2) engaged in educational activities, even if on vacation
(not paid for by employer); (3) unemployed and actively looking for a job; (4) unemployed, wanting a job, but not
actively looking for a job; (5) permanently sick or disabled; (6) retired; (7) in community or military service; or (8) doing
housework, looking after children or other persons.
For our review of policies and legislation geared toward refugees, we collected information from several sources,
including governmental websites, non-governmental organizations, and the U.S. Library of Congress.

3. Results

3.1. Asylum seekers

Since 2012, Germany has been the primary destination country for asylum seekers in Europe. As a result, we chose
Germany as one of the seven countries to focus the analysis [Figure 1]. Between 2012 and 2015, Germany received one
of the highest numbers of asylum applications in the region (more than 860,000) (UNHCR, 2015), and the number of
applications that were approved was approximately 244,000 during the same period (Eurostat, 2017a). Positive decisions
granted to Syrian refugees in Germany were influenced by the country’s policy toward accepting Syrian refugees by
waiving the EU rules. During this same period, the number of Syrian asylum applicants in Germany increased from

26 International Journal of Population Studies | 2018, Volume 4, Issue 1