Labour market – and wider societal – integration of refugees and migrants in general is at the forefront of the current policy debate. And rightly so; better integration benefits the migrant, the host country’s population and public finances.

A number of recent noteworthy publications have therefore studied the labour market integration process and how to improve it. While the diverse background of new arrivals is often acknowledged in these studies, on-the-ground labour market integration programs too often follow a one-size-fits-all approach. In this Policy Brief, the authors argue that there is a particular strong case for labour market integration measures specifically geared towards female migrants.

Hence, integration efforts need to more explicitly take the gender dimension into account and further analyse the determinants of the gender gap in integration.

This Policy Brief was written in the framework of the EuroMeSCo Working Package “Mapping Migration Challenges in the EU Transit and Destination Countries”, led by the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade.