Between active citizenship and exploitation: understanding exhaustion and disposability in un(der)paid and low-paid labor by refugees in the Netherlands

Dutch refugee integration and labor policies promote un(der)paid and low-paid labor by refugees a key pathway for participation. This article draws on an extensive number of interviews with public, non-public and private actors as well as refugees to examine refugees’ experiences with such forms of labor. We find that refugees are often pushed by frontline workers into protracted forms of un(der)paid labor and short-term, low-paid roles that disregard prior experience and derail personal aspirations. These potentially exploitative positions rarely deliver on promises of language acquisition or future employment, leaving many refugees feeling trapped in unfulfilling and alienating jobs. Our findings challenge dominant narratives of active citizenship that repackage un(der)paid labor as “volunteering” and celebrate low-paid labor as empowering forms of participation. Instead, we reveal how current policies in the Netherlands foster precarity, exhaustion, and disposability, undermining genuine inclusion and sustainable employment.