Not Working: Exploring how restrictions on the right to work impact on young asylum seekers' mental health and welfare.

This mixed methods project will examine restrictions placed on young unaccompanied asylum seekers' (aged 18-25) right to work (RTW) and its impact on their mental health and welfare.

Whilst there has been a considerable amount of research on asylum seekers' experiences and treatment in the UK, and an ongoing campaign to open up work-related rights to asylum seekers, this research is overwhelmingly premised on a presumption of the skilled, mature adult who has acquired experience and qualifications in their home country but who subsequently becomes deskilled and excluded by current UK policy (Chase 2019; Popescu 2016; Targarona Rifa 2021).

There has been little acknowledgment of the relationship between work-based restrictions and young asylum seekers' social, economic and psychological health and wellbeing, or on the potential for work-based rights to support their integration in and contribution to society.