The drive for citizenship and the drive for a permanent home is a pretty powerful drive.” New York Times reporter Jesse McKinley was quoting Professor of Economics Paul Hagstrom in a Feb. 22 article in the Times titled “A Surprising Salve for New York’s Beleaguered Cities: Refugees.”
The article, which focused on the benefits refugees had brought to economically depressed Upstate New York cities, referenced Hagstrom’s paper, “The Fiscal Impact of Refugee Resettlement in the Mohawk Valley.” Among other points, his research found that “evidence suggests that efforts to resettle refugees in Utica, quite apart from any non-fiscal benefits or costs, is a net fiscal benefit to the community” and “there is little evidence that refugees have hurt the employment opportunities of native workers.”
According to the Times article, Hagstrom said that “…the bulk of those positions for refugees are ‘starter jobs’ like working in greenhouses, kitchens or laundries, often replacing previous generations of immigrants. ‘It’s a well-worn path.’”
Hagstrom’s research was again referenced in a Feb. 23 International Business Times article titled “Refugees in the US: What Type Of Jobs Do Asylum Seekers Take In America?”
Along with Associate Professor of Anthropology Chaise LaDousa and Professor of Economics Erol Balkan, Hagstrom is planning a New York 6 (NY6) conference at Hamilton on April 7 to 9 titled "Refugees on the Move: The Global Refugee Crisis and Local Refugee Lives."
Last summer Hagstrom led a Levitt research group studying refugee youth in the Utica-Rome Metropolitan Statistical Area with the goal of determining the retention rate of refugee youth in the Utica area and the reasons why refugees choose to stay or leave.
