Syrians in Beirut post-2011

Abstract

The Syrian crisis had a profound political, social, legal, and economic impact on Lebanon. The country has been historically part of a circular migration with Syria and a receptor of the Syrian labour for its largely informal labour market. With the ongoing Syrian crisis, the dynamics related to circular migration changed, and new dynamics related to forced migration were introduced. The aim of this research is to understand how the Syrian crisis impacted informal labour in Lebanon through understanding of the structural aspect of the informal sector, and the experiences of informal Syrian workers. This study takes informal Syrian workers in Beirut as a case study to answer the thesis’s basic question: How did the Syrian crisis impact the labour informality in Lebanon in the restaurant industry?