Youth migration during war: Triggers of positive aspirations and preservation of human resources in Ukraine

Abstract

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has become an existential challenge and a trigger of the migration crisis. The study aims to identify migration intentions of youth and factors for the preservation of the young population in Ukraine (a case study of university youth). The study conducts a sociological survey using a Google Forms questionnaire. The sample was formed by the method of three-stage selection: (1) quotas for the share of undergraduate and graduate students; (2) the higher education institutions in Ukraine were selected by the criterion of the number of students and specialties; and (3) field of knowledge. The sample size is calculated based on the resampling method and included 2,200 people from all regions in Ukraine (except Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts). The study reveals that 10% of students plan to go abroad in the near future before graduation, 30% plan to stay in Ukraine only if the socio-economic situation improves after the end of the war, and 28.3% plan to migrate after graduation. The reasons for positive migration aspirations among students are socio-economic and security issues (14.9% can find a job abroad in the short term, 11.1% see the lack of further prospects in Ukraine even after the end of the war). Monitoring of youth migration processes across two vectors – current volumes and potential aspirations – can serve as an information and analytical basis for the development of a new vision of the country’s migration security strategy to preserve human resources in Ukraine.