Policy Papers by G. Mulvey
: Karyotis, G., Colburn, B., Doyle, L., Hermannsson, K., Mulvey, G., and Skleparis, D. (2018) Building a New Life in Britain: The Skills, Experiences and Aspirations of Young Syrian Refugees, Building Futures Policy Report No 1, Glasgow: Policy Scotland.
This report, the first of the project, presents original research evidence based on 1,516 face-to... more This report, the first of the project, presents original research evidence based on 1,516 face-to-face interviews with young Syrian international protection beneficiaries and applicants, 18-32 years old, which were conducted in the UK, Lebanon and Greece, between April and October 2017. Key findings from this comparative analysis inform our policy recommendations concerning the settlement, training and skills provision for young forced migrants in the UK.
Key Findings:
- Young Syrian refugees in the UK have the highest levels of skills and training, and are most eager to remain and contribute to the host country, compared with those in Greece and Lebanon.
- Young Syrian refugees are faced with higher levels of unemployment in the UK than citizens, while many of them who are in employment are doing jobs for which they are over-qualified.
- Refugees in the UK receive better support and have an overall more positive experience and evaluation of actors compared to those in Greece and Lebanon, but access to key provisions designed to enhance labour market participation remains patchy.
- Syrian refugees who have been resettled to the UK report overall more positive experiences than those coming through the asylum route, despite higher levels of employment among the latter and the government supposedly taking the more vulnerable among the former.
- Young Syrians in Scotland are better supported, and more positive about their engagement with people and institutions, although they are currently more distanced from re-integration into the labour market compared to those settled in England.
Papers by G. Mulvey
Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space
Access to social rights is crucial to refugee settlement and integration, and a whole range of so... more Access to social rights is crucial to refugee settlement and integration, and a whole range of social policy measures determine the limits on those rights. In the United Kingdom (UK) various relevant social policies are divided into devolved and reserved categories. This has resulted in a distinct territorial variance in social rights and welfare provisions within the country. The aim of this article is to explore how young Syrian refugees experience this territorial divergence in two jurisdictions: in Scotland, where they are part social citizens; and in England, where access to social rights is more limited. We use the prism of social citizenship as a means of examining the experiences of settlement and integration of Syrian refugees in the two nations. We draw out contrasts between these experiences and locate them within the interactions between the politics of welfare and refugee politics in the two nations. We argue that fine variances in England’s and Scotland’s social rights...
Statistical findings from stage one of a three-year study into how refugees and asylum seekers ar... more Statistical findings from stage one of a three-year study into how refugees and asylum seekers are integrating into life in Scotland. Includes research on how refugees experience housing, employment and communities.
18th Egos Colloquium, Barcelona, …, 2002
Acknowledgements The paper is based on data collected as part of an ESRC project funded under the... more Acknowledgements The paper is based on data collected as part of an ESRC project funded under the Future of Work Initiative (award number L212252006) 'Employment and Working Life Beyond the Year 2000: Two Emerging Employment Sectors' (1999-2001). The full ...
This report highlights the problems associated with the cashlessness that living on Section 4 sup... more This report highlights the problems associated with the cashlessness that living on Section 4 support imposes. It highlights both the length of time that people are surviving on Section 4 support and the problems associated with such a life.
This report provides a summary of a three-year research study into refugee integration. It focuse... more This report provides a summary of a three-year research study into refugee integration. It focuses on employment, housing, education and health.
... Cite this report as Connell J, Mulvey G, Brady J, Christie G. One Day We Will Be ... Glasgow:... more ... Cite this report as Connell J, Mulvey G, Brady J, Christie G. One Day We Will Be ... Glasgow: Scottish Refugee Council, 2010. We are particularly grateful to: David Holmes, Helen Baillot, Rosanne Alexander, Sharon Cranwell, Tommy Taylor, Brian Bryceland, Wafa Shaheen, ...
The views expressed in this report are those of the researcher and do not necessarily represent t... more The views expressed in this report are those of the researcher and do not necessarily represent those of the Department or Scottish Ministers.
, and is supported by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), a £1.5 billion fund announced b... more , and is supported by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), a £1.5 billion fund announced by the UK government to encourage research which addresses challenges faced by developing countries. The funding is part of the budget for the Department for International Development and is administered through various UK-based funding bodies. Building Futures was part of a group of projects addressing the problems of forced displacement, funded jointly through the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) (award reference: ES/P005179/1). The Building Futures research project provides the most comprehensive assessment of the skills, training needs, work aspirations, lived experiences, and ethical perspectives of young Syrian forced migrants as they attempt to rebuild their lives in three host countries: a neighbouring host state (Lebanon), the main entry point to Europe (Greece), and a north European destination state (the United Kingdom-UK). It is also the first to offer a parallel exploration of the attitudes of host populations towards the displaced people in their midst in the respective countries. It is run by an interdisciplinary research team with expertise spanning economics, education and training, ethics, migration studies, political philosophy, political science, and sociology, and in cooperation with partners SolidarityNow (Greece), Educart-the Center for Educational Consultation and Research (Lebanon) and the Scottish Refugee Council (UK). The research findings are derived from face-to-face interviews with 1,516 Syrian international protection beneficiaries and applicants, aged between 18 and 32. The fieldwork was conducted in Lebanon (532 interviews), Greece (500 interviews) and the UK (484 interviews) between April and October 2017, by trained researchers and with the support of our partners. This first project report mainly focusses on this part of the fieldwork, exploring experiences, skills, training needs and work aspirations of young, forcibly displaced Syrians and their implications for policy. The second part of our fieldwork sought to capture the corresponding attitudes of citizens in the three host states, Lebanon, Greece and the UK. Representative surveys of home populations in the three countries, administered between October 2017 and April 2018, provided data on citizens' aspirations and ideals, attitudes to refugees, and priorities for refugee policies. A full analysis of this part of the project is included in a final report, currently in preparation. Indeed, although this report is based on our survey with young refugees, the Building Futures project gives equal attention to the attitudes and preferences of citizens. Its overarching aim is to help overcome the perceived antagonism between the two groups, citizens and refugees, and promote consensus and cross-community understanding in a context of strained public resources and antiimmigration sentiment.
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
This article explores the experiences of young Syrian refugees in the UK. It looks at how settlem... more This article explores the experiences of young Syrian refugees in the UK. It looks at how settlement plays out for two 'types' of Syrian refugees, those resettled by the UK Government and those who claim asylum in the UK. Drawing on new empirical data from 484 Syrian refugees in the UK, the article compares and contrasts the two groups' access to educational provisions, the labour market and general support mechanisms that should, in principle, be equally available to all refugees. This reveals the scale and consequences of the existing two-tier system of international protection based entirely on how refugees come to be in the UK, rather than any objective analysis of their reason for flight. In doing so, the article seeks to contribute to debates about the process and implications of how host states label people, in this case by de facto treating resettled Syrians as the 'good' refugees, while those who arrive of their own volition, regardless of their needs, are viewed as more problematic.
Journal of International Migration and Integration
In this paper, we explore views on the implementation of migrant integration 'policy' in a settin... more In this paper, we explore views on the implementation of migrant integration 'policy' in a setting characterised by devolution, using data collected among local and national policy stakeholders in the UK. More specifically, we focus on localism and mainstreaming, which have recently dominated policy debates and endeavours about integration. Our findings shed new light on the challenges and opportunities of these strategies as they are perceived and experienced by policy stakeholders. In particular, we reflect on the important interplay between different levels of governance and the tensions that arise out of these in a devolved context. Our evidence suggests that the shift from centralised to localised policy action is faced with several challenges. First of all, there is a contradiction between the localism agenda, with the devolution of powers and responsibilities, and the context of austerity. Secondly, there are frictions between levels of governance in the devolved UK context, and particularly on how the implementation of integration at the local level is affected by non-devolved policies. Finally, with regard to mainstreaming the need for a more flexible policy approach that recognises and embraces the complexity and dynamism of the integration process is emphasised.
National Identities
This paper examines migration and identity in contemporary Scotland and engages ongoing debate ab... more This paper examines migration and identity in contemporary Scotland and engages ongoing debate about the relationship between nationalism and cosmopolitanism. The paper employs Arendt's maxim of the 'right to have rights' to suggest that while identity would not be the sole or specific focus of policy, more well-developed social policy attuned to the complexities of identity formation would facilitate multi-cultural and multi-ethnic social identification.
... The full research at Strathclyde, Stirling and Glasgow Caledonian Universities is as follows:... more ... The full research at Strathclyde, Stirling and Glasgow Caledonian Universities is as follows: Peter Bain, Chris Baldry, Aileen Watson, Dora Scholarios, , Dirk Bunzel, Gregor Gall, Kay Gilbert, JeffHyman, Cliff Lockyer, Philip Taylor, Abigail Marks, Nicholas Bozionelos and Gareth ...
Journal of Social Policy, 2015
While the concept of migrant integration is a contested one, national, sub-national and local gov... more While the concept of migrant integration is a contested one, national, sub-national and local governments over the past forty to fifty years have professed support for integration in various forms. However, practical measures have been rare, with broad race-relations policies from the 1960s being the primary means of ‘inclusion’. Under New Labour, refugees were identified as a migrant population with particular challenges and they have been the only migrant group subject to specific integration programmes. Nevertheless, policy and rhetoric about asylum seekers and refugees more generally have tended to operate against integration and have made it increasingly difficult for refugees to rebuild their lives. This paper examines refugee integration from the perspectives of the refugees themselves, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. It also looks at the governance of integration in Scotland and highlights Scottish distinctiveness vis-à-vis the UK. The article suggests that ...
Acknowledgements The paper is based on data collected as part of an ESRC project funded under the... more Acknowledgements The paper is based on data collected as part of an ESRC project funded under the Future of Work Initiative (award number L212252006) 'Employment and Working Life Beyond the Year 2000: Two Emerging Employment Sectors' (1999-2001). The full ...
Uploads
Policy Papers by G. Mulvey
Key Findings:
- Young Syrian refugees in the UK have the highest levels of skills and training, and are most eager to remain and contribute to the host country, compared with those in Greece and Lebanon.
- Young Syrian refugees are faced with higher levels of unemployment in the UK than citizens, while many of them who are in employment are doing jobs for which they are over-qualified.
- Refugees in the UK receive better support and have an overall more positive experience and evaluation of actors compared to those in Greece and Lebanon, but access to key provisions designed to enhance labour market participation remains patchy.
- Syrian refugees who have been resettled to the UK report overall more positive experiences than those coming through the asylum route, despite higher levels of employment among the latter and the government supposedly taking the more vulnerable among the former.
- Young Syrians in Scotland are better supported, and more positive about their engagement with people and institutions, although they are currently more distanced from re-integration into the labour market compared to those settled in England.
Papers by G. Mulvey
Key Findings:
- Young Syrian refugees in the UK have the highest levels of skills and training, and are most eager to remain and contribute to the host country, compared with those in Greece and Lebanon.
- Young Syrian refugees are faced with higher levels of unemployment in the UK than citizens, while many of them who are in employment are doing jobs for which they are over-qualified.
- Refugees in the UK receive better support and have an overall more positive experience and evaluation of actors compared to those in Greece and Lebanon, but access to key provisions designed to enhance labour market participation remains patchy.
- Syrian refugees who have been resettled to the UK report overall more positive experiences than those coming through the asylum route, despite higher levels of employment among the latter and the government supposedly taking the more vulnerable among the former.
- Young Syrians in Scotland are better supported, and more positive about their engagement with people and institutions, although they are currently more distanced from re-integration into the labour market compared to those settled in England.