Evidence Generation
Asia
Evidence Generation
Asia
The international community has long struggled to understand the long-run effects of refugee flows, and little evidence currently exists to inform policy for future refugee crises. Funded by IPA's Peace & Recovery Initiative, the Syrian Refugee Life Study (S-RLS) was among the first systematic efforts to survey a large, representative refugee sample, and to follow that sample over time. Researchers collected information on Syrian refugees' economic well-being, education, social attitudes, and mental health, and tracked these variables as refugees settled in Jordan, returned to Syria, or sought asylum in third countries. This data allowed researchers to observe outcomes over time to estimate the long-run welfare implications of refugees’ migration decisions, in turn informing future research and policy.
Under the S-RLS, the researchers additionally conducted a randomized evaluation of a subsidized housing assistance program for refugees in Jordan. The evaluation found that while the housing program improved refugees' housing quality and reduced average monthly expenditures in the short term, it unintentionally worsened child socio-emotional well-being and strained relations between refugees and Jordanian neighbors.
For more information on the studies referenced, please visit the study pages below:
Randomized Evaluation: Housing Subsidies: Evidence on Refugee Life Outcomes and Social Integration in Jordan
Panel Survey: Understanding Syrian Refugee Wellbeing: Long-term Insights from the Syrian Refugee Life Study in Jordan
To learn more about this work, see Center for Effective Global Action’s (CEGA) project page and press release.
Please see this VoxDev article and Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative webinar recording.
To understand how this study fits within the broader evidence base on displacement, please see it referenced in VoxDevLit’s Refugees and Other Forcibly Displaced Populations literature review.
The S-RLS panel data are publicly available on the Harvard Dataverse. Data from the panel survey were also used in the 2025 working paper, “Chronic Depression, Child Development and Human Capital among the Forcibly Displaced: Evidence from Syrian Refugees.”
