"Online Work Kept Me Alive": Psychosocial Value of Remote Work Among Protection Holders from Ukraine Understanding Refugee Employment Beyond Income and Integration

Abstract

Remote work has become a noticeable but underexplored form of employment among refugees. Existing research has focused on the socioeconomic opportunities and precarities of digital labour, paying less attention to what remote work means to refugees. Drawing on interviews with protection holders from Ukraine who have worked remotely while in Sweden, this research brief examines the psychosocial value they attach to their remote employment. Using Marie Jahoda’s latent deprivation model and two participants’ stories, this article shows how remote work can restore purpose, sustain social ties and enable meaningful activity during displacement. This supports refugee wellbeing even when remote work provides little income or when it supplements, rather than replaces, local employment. In conclusion, the article calls on policy and practice to assess refugee labour market participation beyond local employment, enabling capabilities and self-determined, psychologically meaningful livelihoods.