Unaccompanied refugee minors from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Myanmar, and Somalia: Educational attainment, economic well-being, and social ties in the United States
Loading...
Author/Creator
Author/Creator ORCID
Date
2022-10-14
Type of Work
Department
Program
Citation of Original Publication
Kerri Evans ,Hannah Ferguson. Unaccompanied refugee minors from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Myanmar, and Somalia: Educational attainment, economic well-being, and social ties in the United States. IJPS 2022, 8(2), 304. https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.v8i2.304
Rights
This item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Subjects
Abstract
In 2019, there were 21.3 million refugees around the globe. A small number of these
are accepted to the United States each year under the Unaccompanied Refugee
Minor Foster Care Program. There is currently limited research on the outcomes of
young adults served through this unique program. In this paper, we share outcomes
(educational attainment, economic well-being, and social ties) for young adults
who leave care from the countries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea,
Myanmar, and Somalia. The authors report descriptive statistics for young adults who
discharged from the foster care program (n = 388) as well as Pearson’s Chi-square tests
to test correlations between outcomes and country of origin. Results show that youth
from Myanmar is most likely to be enrolled in college at time of discharge. Youth from
the DRC is equally likely to be enrolled in college or to have only completed a GED
or high school diploma. Youth from Myanmar is more likely to be employed than
youth from other countries. Eritrean youth was more likely to be lacking economic
self-sufficiency at time of discharge than youth from other countries. Results from this
study suggest ways that service providers can tailor service plans to help youth from
different countries achieve the best outcomes, and pose questions for future research.