The Impact of Refugee Shocks on Host Countries: A Scoping Review

This article provides a systematic overview of the academic literature on the impact of 'refugee shocks' on host countries: the sudden arrival of large numbers of refugees in a place. A scoping analysis was conducted to describe the literature, drawing on 4,576 effects from 123 studies. About two thirds of the effects concern economic outcomes in the host country, while few cover health or the environment. There are generally positive effects on education, and generally negative effects on wages and employment. Refugee shocks tend to be associated with an increase in votes for the radical right. Across topics, about half of the analyses indicate no statistically significant effect. We find an increase in studies on refugee shocks after 2015, and that the most commonly studied shocks took place in the Middle East and Europe. We conclude that many dimensions need to be studied to adequately characterize the impact of refugee shocks on host countries.