The role of private sponsorship on refugee resettlement outcomes: a mixed methods study of Syrians in a mid-sized city with a linguistic minority

Given the growing number of refugees worldwide and the disproportionate burden borne by low- and middle-income host countries, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has been seeking to expand pathways for refugees by relocating them to higher-income countries; as such, it put forward Canada's program of private refugee sponsorship as a model to follow. Despite praise for Canada's program, many countries hesitate to adopt it due to limited evidence on the integration outcomes of private refugee sponsorship. We address this knowledge gap by examining the case of Syrians resettled in a mid-sized city in Quebec, the only French-speaking province in Canada, using a mixed methods approach. We document the sponsorship experiences of Syrian refuges, and we estimate the effect of private vs. government sponsorship on their resettlement outcomes while controlling for pre-arrival characteristics. We find that private sponsorship offered refugees more diverse, intensive, enduring, and valued support compared to government sponsorship. Consistently with these results, our estimates show that private sponsorship could be an effective strategy for resettling refugees in medium-sized cities with respect to employment, housing, social networking, and a sense of belonging to the city, with the potential exception of acquiring the domestic language.