Return Intentions of Ukrainian Refugees: The Role of National Identity and Pride
21 Pages Posted: 4 Feb 2025
Date Written: November 20, 2024
Abstract
The war in Ukraine has displaced over 6.4 million Ukrainians to neighboring countries. This study investigates the return intentions of Ukrainian refugees, focusing on national identity and pride as psychological factors. Using a large-scale experimental survey, we examined how increasing the salience of these factors affects return decisions. Our findings show that making national identity more salient slightly increases the desire to return, while making pride more salient decreases it, particularly among those with lower pride levels. These results suggest that interventions enhancing national identity could promote return migration, but pride-based strategies should be used cautiously. The study contributes to the literature on migration and identity economics, providing policy insights for facilitating the return of war refugees.
Keywords: identity, migration, refugees, behavioral intervention
JEL Classification: D01, D91
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation