Socio-Economic Challenges of Integration and Spatial Distribution of War-Induced Internally Displaced Persons

Abstract

The full-scale Russian military aggression against Ukraine launched on February 24, 2022 has led to a massive flow of forced migrants, both external and internal, which is unprecedented and the most massive forced displacement in Europe since World War II. So far, there is a significant inequality of attention to the socio-economic needs of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees, because most activities of international institutions and scientific attention are devoted to the needs and study of refugees, while the needs of IDPs are often “ignored” or understudied in terms of disproportionate spatial distribution of IDPs, challenges of integration into host communities, problems of consolidation of IDPs and local population, etc. The analysis of the existing body of literature on Ukrainian IDPs showed that the study of their current socio-economic situation, problems with integration into host communities and features of spatial distribution is poorly represented for the period of a full-scale Russo-Ukrainian war against the background of a huge body of pre-2022 literature. Taking into account such an insignificant body of literature on post-2022 Ukrainian IDPs, the main tasks of this study are twofold: (1) to fill the gap and expand the spectrum of knowledge about the current socio-economic situation of Ukrainian IDPs and the key problems of their integration into host communities in the conditions of a full-scale Russo-Ukrainian war; (2) analyze positive and negative international practices of IDP integration and develop recommendations for Ukraine. This article is devoted to the analysis of trends and the identification of the main socio-economic challenges of the integration and spatial distribution of Ukrainian IDPs, as well as the development of proposals for using their migration potential for the resilient development of Ukraine and host communities. The novelty of the research lies in the highlighting of positive and negative international practices of IDP integration and, as a result, the necessity of forming long-term solutions regarding the urgent socio-economic needs of Ukrainian IDPs and their spatial placement is emphasized. The dataset of the study was formed on the basis of data from reports of various international organizations and data from official state statistics. To achieve the goal of the article, quantitative methods are used, in particular, descriptive statistics and ranking. It was established that in the global context, Ukraine ranks third in the world by the number of IDPs, and their number is almost 6 million people (7 times more than before the full-scale Russian invasion), which definitely impacts the course of global migration processes. In the national context, it was found that the pattern of the spatial distribution of IDPs within the country indicates that most IDPs gravitate to the regions where the role of the regional centre is performed by one of the five metropolises of Ukraine (not including temporarily occupied Donetsk) — Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro and Lviv, which are powerful socio-economic centres and flagships of the country’s settlement system. It was found that the biggest challenges for the socioeconomic integration of IDPs into host communities are high unemployment, financial difficulties in meeting basic needs, housing problems, social stigmatization, as well as conflicts between IDPs and the population of host communities. The analysis showed that the current situation with Ukrainian IDPs requires from the government of Ukraine and the authorities of the host communities not short-term, but longterm solutions to the urgent problems of IDPs: in particular, social housing and proper housing conditions, social protection, avoiding shameful international practices of spatial placement of IDPs and much more.