Capital (architecture)

Labour economics

Cultural capital

Social psychology

Afghan

Archaeology

Refugee

Economics

Computer science

Syrian refugees

Psychology

Political science

Value (mathematics)

Demographic economics

Social capital

Sociology

Seekers

Machine learning

Social science

History

Journal of Vocational Behavior

This study explores how refugees relocate, acquire, and convert cultural, social, and economic capital when entering the Austrian labor market. Drawing on Bourdieu's theory of practice, we conducted 35 semi-structured interviews with Afghan and Syrian refugee job seekers to investigate how the value of the capital forms changes when they move to a culturally distant field, and what strategies they use to develop their career capital portfolio. Findings reveal that (a) all capital forms are strongly devaluated; (b) refugees striving to use their cultural capital encounter unfamiliar labor market rules, occupational identity threats, and status loss; (c) acquisition and conversion of new capital require both the intricate interplay of capital forms and refugees' proactivity. The article concludes with a discussion of theoretical contributions and practical implications for refugee labor market integration.

Refugees' career capital welcome? Afghan and Syrian refugee job seekers in Austria