The Effect of Conflict Intensity on Refugees’ Settlement Intentions under Uncertainty

Andreas Ette , Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB)
Yuliya Kosyakova, University of Bamberg
Herbert Brücker, Institute for Employment Research
Silvia Schwanhäuser, Institute for Employment Research

Settlement intentions of refugees have a great impact on their future life course, impacting decisions regarding human capital investments, participation in the labor market, or social integration. Previous literature mainly focuses on settlement intentions of voluntary migrants, covering economic and socio-cultural factors of temporary migration. In contrast, this work focuses on forced migration. Even though economic and socio-cultural factors also impact refugees’ settlement intentions, they are additionally impacted by – sometimes rapidly changing – conditions in the home country. Therefore, we invest how refugees’ settlement intentions are affected by such conditions, namely conflict intensity. We argue that a higher conflict intensity is correlated with lower return intentions, as it indicates a long-term reduced security situation, deteriorated economic and social living conditions, and increases refugees’ levels of anxiety and stress. We rely on survey data on settlement intentions of Ukrainian refugees who arrived in Germany in the course of the Russian invasion (February to June, 2022), including around 11,200 registered Ukrainian nationals aged 18 to 70. Linking this data to time-varying data on conflict intensity in Ukraine, we analyze whether and how conflict intensity in the home country influences refugee’s settlement intentions. We find that conflict intensity has a positive effect on refugees’ settlement intentions, even after including various fixed effects and covariates. To account for uncertainty about the outcome and duration of the war in Ukraine, we extend the analysis by dividing our sample into certain stayers, certain returnees, and uncertain refugees. We find that conflict intensity reduces uncertainty of settlement intentions.

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 Presented in Session 57. Migrant Conflict Chronicles: Displacement Dynamics and Decision Dilemmas