From Involuntary Mobility to Voluntary Immobility? Understanding the Complex Dynamics of Refugees’ Stay or Return Intentions

Cecilia Fortunato , Sapienza University of Rome
Elena Ambrosetti, Sapienza Università di Roma

A crucial topic in migration studies is the exploration of migrant’s further mobility over the life course and the possibility of permanent voluntary return to their country of origin at some point in life. Among migrants, refugees may present a higher level of uncertainty about the possibility of return and lack of concrete alternatives, as they have been forced to flee their countries of origin due to a well-founded fear of persecution, violence, or conflict. Understanding refugees' aspirations to return to their home countries or stay in the host countries is crucial for designing effective programs and policies that facilitate their voluntary repatriation and successful reintegration. We set our analysis in the context of large-scale displacements of people fleeing war-torn zones, using observational survey data from a representative sample of 6,282 refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq migrated between 2013 and 2018, living in Germany and participating to the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees in 2016, 2017 and 2018. We investigate refugees’ return intention as a function of different policies in host country and in relation to wished changes in conditions in countries of origin, controlling for individual demographic, economic and socio-cultural factors that may affect return intentions’ outcomes. We develop a multi-method approach in a multi-step analytical design, primarily running a nonresponse analysis and imputations techniques to mitigate the impact of nonresponse bias, and exploiting data both cross-sectionally and longitudinally through binary, multinomial and fixed effect logistic regression analysis for the different variables under study.

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 Presented in Session 17. Refugees