A lot is known about the inequalities experienced by refugees, but much less is known about their children’s lives. Ben Wilson, a post-doctoral researcher at the Stockholm University Demography Unit (SUDA), Department of Sociology, receives a new ERC Starting Grant to study the inequalities that are faced by the children and grandchildren of refugees living in Sweden.
“More than 2.5 million refugees have been granted residence in Europe over the last ten years and their long-run adaptation is a fundamental societal challenge,” said Ben Wilson when we spoke to him this week. “The idea of this project is to set the foundation for future research on the descendants of refugees.”
The interdisciplinary project – A Better Life for the Children of Exile: Intergenerational Adaptation of the Descendants of Refugees (REFU-GEN) – is the first comprehensive holistic study of the descendants of refugees. It is funded with 1,4 million euros over five years and sets out to compare four domains of life for descendants of refugees: (1) their education, income and employment, (2) their family formation, (3) where and how they live, and (4) their health.
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