Refugee Resettlement in the United States, Germany, and Sweden: A Policy Description and Evaluation

Background: As of 2013, the refugee population was estimated to be around 51.2 million—the most since World II. Refugees and their families face a variety of challenges upon entering a new country and beginning the process of resettlement. Often they are faced with language barriers that make it difficult and stressful to navigate the new country. Refugees with children also struggle accessing childcare due to cost and language barriers, which can pose even greater challenges to resettlement. Additionally, children and adolescents face challenges acquiring new languages and adapting to a new culture, and both parents and children often experience high levels of acculturative stress. Additionally, refugees and their families may face a variety of mental health issues. Often they have come from violent or oppressive situations in their home country and may suffer from symptoms of PTSD or depression. Moreover, the children of refugee families can suffer from poor academic performance, social exclusion, and various mental health issues like depression and anxiety. In light of the social problems refugees face, it is important to understand how various policies around the world are approaching refugee resettlement.

Purpose: In order to gain a diverse perspective of resettlement approaches, this paper will examine the policies of the United States, Germany, and Sweden. All three countries take in a large number of refugees, yet they have differing approaches to resettlement programs. Therefore it will be useful to explore the ways the US, Germany, and Sweden address refugee resettlement and compare policies across various dimensions. The efficacy of these programs will be evaluated by analyzing the labor market integration and economic self-sufficiency of the refugees in each country, as well as the consistency and sustainability of the current programs in place.

Methods: This evaluation utilized a thorough literature and policy review of resettlement programs in the US, Germany, and Sweden. Programs were assessed based on their outcomes in labor integration, economic self-sufficiency, consistency, and sustainability. Resettlement programs were rated on a scale of poor to good, and each country was given an average, overall score and ranking for comparison purposes across countries.

Conclusions and Implications: Sweden generated the best overall impression of effective resettlement programming (fair/good), followed by the United States (average/fair) and then Germany (poor/average). Both the United States and Sweden have relatively good labor market integration in comparison to Germany. Economic self-sufficiency did not look highly positive in any of the countries. In terms of consistency, Sweden comes out above and beyond the others in terms of communication and a consistent package of services being given to all refugees. One overall conclusion is the need for more comprehensive and longitudinal evaluations of refugee outcomes and resettlement programs. It is not enough just to offer refugees a place of shelter from the violence or oppression they are fleeing. Rather it is essential to treat them as an important population in society, and thus work to facilitate their success through rigorous program development and evaluation.