Western Asia · data through 2024
Jordan hosts one of the highest shares of refugees in the world relative to its population, alongside a large migrant workforce.
Twenty five year view
These lines show migrant stock, meaning people living outside their birth country at each point in time. They do not show annual arrivals.
Why people move
Palestinian communities of long standing, Syrians displaced since 2011, and Iraqi and Yemeni arrivals live alongside Egyptian and South Asian workers in agriculture, construction, and domestic work. Work permit access for Syrians has widened in specific sectors.
Connections
Common destinations
Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, United States, Germany
Common origins
Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, Yemen, Bangladesh
Adapting and finding support
Urban refugee households face rent pressure and limited sector access. Water and public service strain affects host and refugee families alike.
Protection agency registration and sector specific work permit routes are the decisive steps.
Use the support guideResearch that explains this pattern
Psychology
The strain of language, status loss, discrimination, and unfamiliar systems produces a measurable load on health, distinct from the trauma of any journey.
Distress often peaks one to three years after arrival, not on the first day.
John W. Berry and colleagues; later clinical work on migrant mental health
Anthropology
Migration follows the shape of a rite of passage: separation, a long threshold where a person is neither what they were nor what they will be, and eventual reincorporation.
The threshold years, waiting for status or recognition, carry their own distinct suffering and their own solidarity.
Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner on liminality
Behavioural economics
A household sends one member abroad to diversify its income, so a harvest failure or a currency collapse at home no longer threatens everyone at once.
Money sent home rises after disasters and downturns, and migration decisions are made by families rather than by individuals.
Oded Stark and David Bloom, the new economics of labour migration, 1985
Support inside and beyond Jordan
Country by country guidance for refugees, people seeking asylum, and stateless people.
Refugees and people seeking asylum
OpenAssistance, voluntary return, reintegration, and counter trafficking support through the local office.
Anyone moving, arriving, or returning
OpenCommunity, child protection, and livelihood programmes for vulnerable families.
Refugee and host community families
OpenThese are public organisations. The project is not affiliated with them and cannot guarantee outcomes. Nothing here is legal advice or an emergency service.
Figures are rounded published estimates. Causes and adaptation differ within every country and should not be read as a verdict about any person.