The Impact of Education and Employment Quality on Self-rated Mental Health Among Syrian Refugees in Canada
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ORIGINAL PAPER
The Impact of Education and Employment Quality on Self‑rated Mental Health Among Syrian Refugees in Canada Jonathan Bridekirk1 · Michaela Hynie1,2 · SyRIA.lth2 Accepted: 5 October 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Finding appropriate employment is a common challenge faced by refugees when resettling in a new country. For refugees with higher education, finding work commensurate with their skills and qualifications may be even more difficult. Refugees with higher education may experience more distress around employment because their expectations for employment are more discrepant from the realities of resettlement. As part of the SyRIA.lth project, the present study looked at employment rates and job quality of Syrian refugees resettling in Canada (N = 1805). Moderately and highly educated participants were more likely to be employed than those with less than high school education. Among those currently employed 2 to 3 years after arrival (n = 627), moderately and highly educated participants reported lower job satisfaction, quality, and appropriateness compared to those with lower education. As expected, employed former refugees with high education reported poorer mental health which was explained by the job quality measures. Keywords Education · Employment · Relative deprivation · Refugees · Mental health
Introduction Refugees who experience social and structural barriers during the resettlement process have been found to be at greater risk for poorer mental and physical health over time [1, 2]. A key aspect of this may be employment; unemployment and underemployment are major predictors of well-being and mental health [3–5]. Refugees who have a higher education and higher language fluency are typically expected to find and attain employment more quickly than those with less education [6]. However, studies have also found that refugees with higher education can experience more stress and poorer mental health outcomes than those with moderate levels of education [6–8]. One possible reason for this seeming discrepancy between material and psychological outcomes is that refugees with higher levels of education face elevated levels of underemployment, and thus greater
* Jonathan Bridekirk [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, York University, 4700 Keele St, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
Centre for Refugee Studies, York University, 4700 Keele St, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
2
disappointment of their employment expectations, relative to those with lower levels of education [1].
Syrian Refugees in Canada Until recently, Syria was an ethnically diverse middleincome country, with a high literacy rate of 84% and 56% of the population living in urban areas [9]. The onset of the conflict in Syria destroyed livelihoods and infrastructure [10], and has resulted in 6.6 million refugees originating from Syria in 8 years, more than from any other country [11]. As part of the global response to the Syrian conflict, Canada resettled 56,260 Syrian r
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