by Juliane Düregger

The University of Bordeaux hosted the second Webinar in the IDenti-T series on Migration and Mobility. Victoriia Kyrcychenko was the first to present, and she talked about her recently published quantitative research on the socio-economic position of Ukrainian refugees.

About the Speaker

Viktoriia Kyrcychenko is a PhD researcher at the Babes-Bolyai University in Romania. She also conducts quantitative research at the Romanian Center for Comparative Migration Studies (CSCM), alongside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Research

The study aimed:

• to identify the current position and needs of Ukrainian refugees; 
• to design effective measures addressing gaps in the fulfilment of these needs; 
• and to present solutions to local organizations working with refugees. 

The research was funded by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the data was collected by the CSCM over a two-month period in fall of 2025.

Sample

The study was composed of 599 participants who were asked to provide information about their entire households, covering 1667 household members in total with an average household size of 2,7 people. All participants were refugees from Ukraine that lived in Romania at the time and they were contacted through a cash assistance registry by stratified random sampling to represent the geographical distribution of refugees in Romania across counties.

-->It would have been interesting to learn how the likely overrepresentation of impoverished refugees, as a result of sampling from a cash relief registry which only serves around 20% of refugees, was addressed in the study.

(Note: The bullet points throughout the text represent my personal opinion and offer methodological reflections on the presented subject, aimed at pointing out challenges in quantitative social research, as well as providing an attempt at contextualizing the data.)

Methodology

The research was conducted through quantitative questionnaires, and participants were interviewed either in-person, or online through videocalls. Due to a gender imbalance in the survey, results were weighted to reflect men and women equally at around 50%.

-->This to me seemed counterintuitive, since 80% of Ukrainian refugees in Romania are women and children, meaning only 20% are men. For future data collection that informs policy in response to the actual population’s needs, it would be interesting to see demographic representation more similar to the population in the data sample.

Findings

A large segment of the findings was dedicated to care-related characteristics of the respective households, such as disability, pregnancy, chronic illness, and small children. The study found that 17% of households had at least one member with a significant disability, while 64% of households were living with minors. Furthermore, the largest age group in the households was that of 18–59-year-olds, constituting 56% of all participants.

-->I would have been interested in learning whether the existence of care relations correlates with the presence of adult women in the household. Showing which demographic carries care obligations would help in exploring where support through policy change would be most effective.

The research showed that around half of the refugee children were not attending school within the Romanian national system. While a portion of those attended school back in Ukraine virtually, around 20% of all children remained without formal education. Furthermore, the report found that around 18% of the respondents had children who were being bullied in school. Notably, 7% were bullied by teachers, which ‘served as an indication that there is a need to focus on school safety,’ states Kyrcychenko.

The study also analysed the education level of adults. 58% of the adult participants had obtained at least a bachelor’s degree, indicating that the educational standard among Ukrainian refugees is notably high. Kyrcychenko noted that this high quality of education creates a need to integrate highly skilled refugee populations into the Romanian labour market in a way that acknowledges their skills.

Personal Reflections

It was interesting to learn about Ukrainian refugee populations in the context of the IDenti-T webinar on Migration and Mobility. What I really appreciated about the webinar was the open format, inviting all participants to ask questions. One participant questioned the meaning of the word integration in the presented research, since the word carries risk of constructing binaries of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ refugees. Kyrcychenko answered that the degree of integration was not operationalized in their study, while reflecting on the intricacies related to ideas of integration together with the participant. She also observed that, in comparison to the data collected in the previous years on this topic, more refugees knew Romanian, and their employment had risen – positive overall developments.

-->To me, it was not entirely clear how the findings related to potential solutions in refugee services. The results could have been contextualized more and showing how the demographics of refugees compare to those of Romanian citizens would have been insightful in understanding the significance of the data.

For future analysis of this primary dataset, it would be really interesting to see some bi- and multivariate analysis beyond different demographic frequency to aim for correlation between factors, such as care distribution and gender, education and employment, or type of schooling and bullying.

Later in the webinar, discussions in separate break-out sessions were facilitated. Participants were invited to discuss prompt questions relating to integration, institutionalized discrimination, and solutions, enabling a shared reflection of the presented contents and an exchange of different perspectives. Communication is an essential skill in interdisciplinary research across different universities to bridge divides across disciplines and avoid miscommunication. Getting to know the other members of the IDenti-T network, while engaging with the presented research from a critical stance was invaluable to the webinar.