Woodhouse, 2020). This is further exacerbated by the fact that refugees are largely located in poor areas of Ethiopia where poverty rates are high and livelihood opportunities are limited.

Numerous studies from around the world have documented the constraints faced by displaced people in accessing livelihood opportunities, including unfavorable political and policy context, poverty, lack of access to capital and markets, negative gender stereotypes and discriminatory attitudes (Campbell, Crisp, & Kiragu, 2011; Jacobsen, Ayoub, & Johnson, 2011; Jacobsen & Fratzke, 2016; Samuel, 2014). However, studies on the gender dimensions of access to livelihoods opportunities have been more limited.

This paper examines livelihood opportunities among refugee and host community households in Ethiopia. For this purpose, we use four livelihood activities including wage and salaried employment, self-employment, participation in family farm activities, and participation in family businesses. First, we examine the gender differences in livelihood activities among refugees and host communities. Second, we compare gendered livelihood outcomes between the four refugee groups (South Sudanese, Somalis, Eritrean, and Sudanese)<sup>2</sup> and comparable host community households. Finally, we analyze livelihood constraints and opportunities that are available to advance the well-being of forcibly displaced women.

Our study aims to increase understanding of livelihoods in one of the largest and most complex refugee settings in the world, with a focus on refugee women and girls. The refugee groups in Ethiopia are diverse, and we are able to compare four refugee-hosting regions that are geographically and ethnically distinct. This study contributes to the empirical literature by providing a closer look at the gender differences in livelihood activities among forcible displaced population and host communities. While there are studies that have looked at gender and displacement (Cagoco-Guiam, 2013; Pape, Petrini, & Iqbal, 2018), there is no empirical study that examines gender differences and livelihoods in a forced displacement situation. We build on these studies to investigate the gender differences among refugees and hosts and compare the two groups, where displacement is increasing, and the literature thus far has focused on the impacts on hosts. The results both contribute to the empirical knowledge on the gender dimensions of forced displacement and inform governments and humanitarian agencies on supporting appropriate livelihood strategies for refugees, across gender lines and refugee groups.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides background information on the four main refugee groups in Ethiopia. Section 3 describes the data used in the analysis

> 2 While the paper used data from the Skills Profile Survey 2017, the situation for refugees in Tigray region is completely changed since first drafting the paper. The conflict in Norther Ethiopia is creating a full-scale humanitarian crisis with many internally displaced individuals as well as having a direct impact on Eritrean refugees. According to the UNHCR, two refugee camps (Shimelba and Hitsats) were destroyed following the conflict, leading Eritrean refugees who lived in the two camps prior to the crisis to flee and leaving them in urgent need of support and safety. Thus, any findings related to Eritrean refugees should be interpreted with caution as they do not reflect their current situation.

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