The legacy of exile for children of refugees: Inequality and disparity across multiple domains of life

While much is known about the health and social circumstances of refugees, less is known about the lives of their children. In particular, little is known about the children of refugees who are born in their parents’ destination, and the inequalities and disparities that they face in adulthood. Using longitudinal register data for the whole population of Sweden, this study is the first to estimate inequality and disparity for the children of refugees during their adulthood using a holistic life course approach. To do this, we compare and contrast outcomes across four domains of life: [1] socioeconomics (education, work and social benefits), [2] residential context (housing and segregation), [3] family formation (partnership and childbearing), and [4] health (mental and physical). For each domain, we estimate inequalities and disparities by making comparisons between children of refugees and (a) children of non-refugee immigrants and (b) children of Swedish-born parents, as well as examining variation by sex and parental country of birth. To do this, we use parametric Generalized Linear Models, varying the link function according to the distribution of the outcome. The findings not only suggest that inequality and disparity is extremely heterogeneous for the children of refugees in Sweden, but also that parental origin plays a key role in predicting disadvantage later in life. We discuss the implications of our findings, including for the children of refugees living in other European countries, and we make recommendations for future research that examines the interrelationship between different domains of life for the children of refugees and other immigrants.