Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Economics, Mazandaran University
Abstract
Afghan refugees are two fifths of total refugees all around the world, who are mainly living in Pakistan and Iran. Relentless wars, devastated economy and drought have not only discouraged the Afghan refugees from returning home, but also created new refugees during recent years.
Less than 5 percent of all Afghan refugees in Iran live in refugee camps, and the rest are living in cities and villages among Iranian people, and provide their needs by working.
Almost all Afghan labourers are working illegally in Iran and do not have work permission. They are unskilled and considered as cheap workers, accepting any low paying jobs. Which were formerly taken up by unskilled Iranian workers who migrated from rural areas.
Because of the lack of reliable data, investigating about the exact effects of the presence of Afghan refugees in the Iranian labour market is not easy, but we can see the overall impacts on wages and unemployment rate.
Afghan refugees have increased the supply of labour force in Iran for more than 2 decades. So wage increase for low skill workers has been very slow in Iran, specially in construction sector, where Afghan workers have a large share.
For estimating the effects of Afghan immigrants on the unemployment rate, regression equations have been estimated. The results show that Afghan workers have been attracted to the prosperous provinces where unskilled workers were most wanted, such as Tehran, Isfahan, Khorasan. As the workers can move around easily in the country, the presence of Afghan workers in certain provinces, has not caused higher unemployment rate neither in cities nor in villages of these provinces, but unemployment rate in the country has been raised.
If Afghan immigrants leave Iran, unemployment rate will decrease and the wage rate for unskilled workers will rise considerably.
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