Nazovni.Rebuild. We dedicate this direction to communities rebuilding projects and finding solutions aimed at returning Ukrainians to their homes.
The mission of the direction:
Development and implementation of solutions that will fill our both small and large communities with people and create quality conditions for Ukrainians to return home, because it is people who are the driving force of our Victory, a key value for our State and a prerequisite for the prosperity of our land in the future.
Our goal:
Elaboration of recommendations concerning the state strategy for the return of our citizens. Our country faced large-scale migration due to the war, 5.6-6.7 million citizens left Ukraine, which was a terrible demographic, social, cultural and economic shock to our state.
As of the end of June 2023, 5.6–6.7 million Ukrainians are abroad due to the war. The vast majority of refugees are women (the largest share of women aged 35-49 is 18%) and children.
According to the figures of the European Statistical System, as of May 2023, the largest share of Ukrainian refugees is in Germany (27%) and Poland (24%). A significant part of Ukrainian refugees lost much of their income after the full-scale invasion began.
Based on international experience, the key factors in the return of refugees to home after the end of the conflict are security; availability of housing to return to; the opportunity to earn a living; comparison of general living conditions at home country and in the country of their stay.
According to the Info Sapiens poll commissioned by the Centre for Economic Strategy, the majority of Ukrainians (63%) who are currently abroad are planning to return to Ukraine. However, we are not sure that all of them will actually return. First of all, the longer the war lasts, the more Ukrainians will adapt to living abroad. Moreover, some part of Ukrainians (6.8%) believe that the prospects for their children are better abroad.
Also, people who left the war zone may have nowhere to return. Thus, their return will depend on how quickly their regions will be rebuilt or whether they will be supported to move to other regions of Ukraine.
Also, according to the regression analysis of the factors which correlate with the return of Ukrainian refugees, we may notice that the current employment status is an important factor. Students who study abroad are less likely to return (68% less likely than non-student respondents) and people who are not working but actively looking for work (45% less likely than those not working and not looking).
This may be related to adaptation to life in the country of their stay and future prospects. In addition, the impact of income is significant: people with high incomes before the war are more likely to return, while those with high incomes now are less likely to do so.
Four groups of refugees were separated by using cluster analysis. The first group (25% of all refugees) are classic refugees: mostly middle-aged women with children who left for Poland. They are not very adapted to life abroad, as 41% of Ukrainians from this group have never been abroad before. In addition, they mostly lived in settlements that were outside the war zone, but suffered from rocket attacks (Central and Western Ukraine, as well as Odesa region). Accordingly, the main reason for going abroad was fear for one’s own safety.
The second group (29% of all refugees) are quasi-labor migrants who went abroad not only because of the war, but also for work. They are the most adapted to life abroad, as 25% of people in this group have already had experience working abroad. Also, for this group, external factors – both hostilities and the policy of the Ukrainian state – will have the least influence on their decision to return to Ukraine.
The third group (29% of all refugees) are professionals, people who mainly work within the field of their specialty and are less willing to work outside of it. Also, before the war, they often had their own business. This group is more loyal to Ukraine and plans to return to Ukraine more often than the others.
The fourth group (16% of all refugees) are people from the war zone, Ukrainians who suffered the most from the war. People from this segment are most ready to take steps to adapt abroad. At the same time, they also express the greatest willingness to return to another region of Ukraine, if it is impossible to return to their homeland. Their decision to return will depend on the conditions created for it.
According to calculations and bearing in mind various scenarios, from 1.3 million to 3.3 million Ukrainians may remain abroad. This is 0.4-0.6 million people more than we had calculated as of December 2022. Such a change is a consequence of the longer duration of hostilities and further adaptation of refugees to life abroad. The non-return of Ukrainians will have a significant impact on the Ukrainian economy, which could lose between 2.7% and 6.9% of its GDP annually.
Our team, using advanced research on the topic of repatriation and based on the experience of countries that have faced this problem, such as Croatia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Israel, is working on creating practical and effective recommendations for programs of the state strategy for the return of citizens of Ukraine, which also can be used at the community level in order to elaborate the development strategies and individual plans of recovery.
• In the preparation of this material, the data of the Centre of Ukraine were used https://ces.org.ua/refugees-from-ukraine-ukr-final-report/