Longitudinal Study of Ukrainian Refugees in Germany (SUARE)

The war of aggression Russia has been waging on Ukraine since February 24, 2022, has triggered the largest movement of refugees in Europe since World War II. Between the start of the war and January 2023, more than one million people have fled Ukraine to Germany.

The refugee migration from Ukraine differs from previous waves of refugee migration with regard to three institutional framework conditions: (1) open borders within the EU through the EU’s visa-free regime and implementation of the Temporary Protection Directive, (2) legal and planning security for refugees in the EU and Germany through secure residency status after immigration, (3) general mobilization and exit ban for men of conscription age in Ukraine.

Refugee migration from Ukraine is also characterized by a high proportion of women with caregiving responsibilities, a high level of education among the refugees, a high degree of uncertainty about the outcomes of the war and options for returning to Ukraine, and a possibly more positive perception of Ukrainian refugees within German society.

This DFG-funded project has two goals:

(1) The project will establish a longitudinal data infrastructure on the socio-economic situation of Ukrainian refugees in Germany (Longitudinal Study of Ukrainian Refugees, SUARE) and will develop this infrastructure further over the next three years. The sample of N = 2,500 households will ultimately be integrated into the IAB-BAMF-SOEP study as well as the main SOEP survey (SOEP-Core) (waves 2023-2025).

(2) The data from this project will be used to investigate the specific institutional, economic, and social framework conditions of refugee migration from Ukraine to Germany and to analyze their significance for issues of health and discrimination through comparison with (a) refugees in Germany from other cultural, political, and socio-economic contexts, (b) non-refugee immigrants in Germany, and (c) the autochthonous population.