Gendered flight constellations and family-reunion intentions of female refugees from Ukraine: Evidence from a representative survey in Germany

Abstract

Since the outbreak of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, about one million people have fled to Germany in 2022. Due to the gender-specific policies for staying and leaving Ukraine, the socio-demographic composition of the refugees differs markedly from previous refugee migrations to Western Europe and from forms of voluntary migration. In particular, it stands out that about three quarters of the adult refugees arriving in Germany were women. Our paper explores systematically the family constellations of the Ukrainians who have fled their country and analyses their family-reunion intentions. We use representative data from the first wave of the “Ukrainian Refugees in Germany (IAB-BiB/FReDA-BAMF-SOEP-Survey)”. About 11,000 refugees aged 18 to 70 years participated in the survey. Only about 23 percent of the women arrived together with their partner in Germany, another 42 percent were single women and 35 percent of the women arrived without their partner. Descriptive analyses reveal ambiguity and uncertainty regarding their stay and family reunion. Multivariable analyses reveal that among these spatially separated women, intentions for family reunion in Germany are particularly high in constellations where the partner lives in more war-affected regions, and when the respondents express their intention to stay in Germany.