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IZA Discussion Paper No. 18590
April 2026
Invisible Immigrants? Urbanisation, Co-National Density and the Legal Integration of Refugees

Using the quasi-random allocation of refugees and detailed administrative data, we examine the effect of urban density on refugees’ decisions to naturalise. Our results indicate that refugees assigned to urban areas are more likely to naturalise, largely due to a higher density of co-national networks. We find that a one standard deviation increase in co-national density increases the likelihood of naturalising by 1.3 percentage points. Our findings remain robust even after accounting for factors such as labour market effects and public attitudes and seem to stem from the reduced information costs and strength of weak ties within co-national networks.

Kommunikation
Mark Fallak
mark.fallak@liser.lu
+352 585-855-526
World of Labour
Olga Nottmeyer
olga.nottmeyer-ext@liser.lu
+352 585-855-501
Netzwerkkoordination
Christina Gathmann
christina.gathmann@liser.lu

Das IZA@LISER-Netzwerk ist eine weltweite Gemeinschaft für exzellente Forschung in der Arbeitsmarktökonomie und angrenzenden Fachgebieten. Nach dem Wechsel von Bonn wird das Netzwerk nun am Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) koordiniert.

Über das IZA@LISER Network
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