Page 31 - IJPS-8-2

International Journal of

Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE
Unaccompanied refugee minors from the

Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea,
Myanmar, and Somalia: Educational attainment,

economic well-being, and social ties in the
United States

Kerri Evans * and Hannah Ferguson 2
1
1 Department of Social Work, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), 1000 Hilltop Cir,
Baltimore, MD 21250, 410-455-2016
2 Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, 700 Light St, Baltimore, MD 21230 USA

Abstract

In 2019, there were 21.3 million refugees around the globe. A small number of these
are accepted to the United States each year under the Unaccompanied Refugee
Minor Foster Care Program. There is currently limited research on the outcomes of
young adults served through this unique program. In this paper, we share outcomes
(educational attainment, economic well-being, and social ties) for young adults
who leave care from the countries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea,
*Corresponding author:
Kerri Evans (kerrievans@umbc.edu) Myanmar, and Somalia. The authors report descriptive statistics for young adults who
discharged from the foster care program (n = 388) as well as Pearson’s Chi-square tests
Citation: Evans, K., & Ferguson, H.
(2022). Unaccompanied refugee to test correlations between outcomes and country of origin. Results show that youth
minors from the Democratic from Myanmar is most likely to be enrolled in college at time of discharge. Youth from
Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, the DRC is equally likely to be enrolled in college or to have only completed a GED
Myanmar, and Somalia: Educational
attainment, economic well-being, or high school diploma. Youth from Myanmar is more likely to be employed than
and social ties in the United States. youth from other countries. Eritrean youth was more likely to be lacking economic
International Journal of Population self-sufficiency at time of discharge than youth from other countries. Results from this
Studies, 8(2):25-33.
https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.v8i2.304 study suggest ways that service providers can tailor service plans to help youth from
different countries achieve the best outcomes, and pose questions for future research.
Received: June 30, 2022
Accepted: September 21, 2022
Keywords: Unaccompanied refugee minor; Foster care; Education; Social connections;
Published Online: October 14, 2022 Employment; Self-sufficiency
Copyright: © 2022 Author(s).
This is an Open Access article
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution 1. Introduction
License, permitting distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, According to the 1951 Refugee Convention, refugees are a specific a group of people who
provided the original work is
properly cited. have been forced to flee their homelands due to persecution (or the fear of persecution),
based on their race, religion, political opinion, nationality, or membership in a particular
Publisher’s Note: AccScience
Publishing remains neutral with social group (UNHCR, 2021).
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional The Unaccompanied Refugee Minor (URM) Foster Care Program was established in
affiliations. the 1970s. The URM program is a specialized foster care system that uses best practices

Volume 8 Issue 2 (2022) 25 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.v8i2.304