With the rising number of refugees seeking protection worldwide, many host countries face the challenge to integrate them into their society and labor market. Structural barriers to employment often complicate this task and lead to a situation in which refugees end up in informal jobs. Due to the illegal nature of unregistered work, little is known about this phenomenon. In this paper, we implement a list experiment in a survey of refugees to measure their experience with unregistered work in Germany. Our results indicate that more than 30 % of the respondents have worked in an unregistered job at some point since their arrival. Furthermore, we find approved asylum status and not having children as positive risk predictors and work permission and better education as
negative ones. These results serve as starting point for further research and tailored measures against unregistered work among refugees.
