Highly Skilled Entrepreneurial Refugees: Legal and Practical Barriers and Enablers to Start Up in the Netherlands

Abstract

This article analyses how highly skilled refugees experience barriers and enablers to entrepreneurship in the Netherlands. Using the welcoming talent model, the article claims that material and procedural norms as well as the governance of support for refugee entrepreneurship in the Netherlands needs a new design. Through socio-legal research on the experiences of highly skilled Syrian refugees, private support structures and municipalities with migration, integration and welfare policies and practices, we reveal that financial independence through entrepreneurship requires not just entrepreneurial skills but meeting the right people and not running into municipalities propagating work first. Policies and practices need to be developed in which welcoming entrepreneurial (highly skilled) refugees is key. Welcoming policies and practices are to offer refugees nationwide, equally accessible, transparent support structures, and access to finance instead of barriers towards financial independence.

“Moving on” with gendered aspirations: Sudanese migrants navigating controlling welfare states, labour markets and migration regimes in the Netherlands and the UK

“…Moreover, in seeing refugees as victims and dependents on the welfare state, opportunities for financial independence (e.g. easier and faster access to self-employment) become limited and frowned upon by many civil servants (see de Lange et al 2020).…”

Introduction “Labour market integration of highly skilled refugees in Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands”

“…This issue is complicated further by uneven municipal support and fragmentation in the multi-level governance of entrepreneurship in the Netherlands (de Lange et al, 2020). Support for refugee entrepreneurs depends on the priorities of municipalities and the availability of funding, and larger municipalities tend to offer more opportunities than smaller cities.…”

“…Future research could also pay more attention to the role of geography in the labour market integration of highly skilled refugees. The offerings of language courses, adult education programmes, labour market preparation activities and entrepreneurship programmes vary by the size of municipalities and their support of refugees (de Lange et al, 2020). Refugees have little influence in their residential placement in countries with dispersal policies.…”

“…Upskilling requirements tend to slow down the entry of highly skilled refugees into the labour market and may demotivate refugees from re‐entering their profession. Some may decide to pursue an alternate career, such as entrepreneurship (de Lange et al, 2020; OECD, 2019). In addition, the workfare ideology and related policies can pose a key obstacle for highly skilled refugees to re‐enter their profession.…”

“…The government offers individuals a loan of up to 10,000 euros to pay for language courses and examinations, and the loan is forgiven if a person completes the civic integration process within three years. A person has to pay a fine and pay back the loan if he or she does not finish the programme within three years (de Lange et al, 2020; Miltenburg & Dagevos, 2020).…”