“What’s up with the economy?” is a weekly podcast by the Centre for Economic Strategy in collaboration with Hromadske Radio and supported by PrivatBank.
Hosts Anhelina Zavadetska and Maksym Samoiliuk speak with experts, entrepreneurs, analysts, and government officials about the current state of Ukraine’s economy.
In the new episode, we discuss the results of the fifth wave of our research on Ukrainian refugees.
The guest of the episode is Iryna Ippolitovasenior researcher at the Centre for Economic Strategy.
We have summarised the main points of the conversation:
How many Ukrainian refugees are there abroad, and who are they? How many men aged 18-22 have left?
According to CES estimates, there are about 5.6 million Ukrainian refugees abroad as of January 2026. The pace of migration is gradually slowing down: fewer people left in 2025 than in 2024, and the main wave of departures (about 70%) occurred in 2022.
More than half of the refugees are people under the age of 35, and almost a third of them are children. 71% of adults have higher education, and 66% belong to the working-age population.
To better understand the profile of those who left, our economists conduct clustering for each wave:
“This year, we have identified four such clusters. They are structured along two axes. The first axis is the desire to stay in the new country. That is, two clusters are more inclined to stay abroad, and two clusters are more oriented towards returning. The second axis is integration,” explains Iryna Ippolitova.
Based on these criteria, we have identified the following four groups:
- “New life trajectory”: mainly young people who have learned the language or are studying abroad. They are well integrated, enjoy their new life, do not have much faith in Ukraine’s prospects, and are determined to stay.
- “With a strong connection”: well-integrated citizens, a significant proportion of whom are entrepreneurs (both in Ukraine before the full-scale invasion and now in their new location). Despite their successful integration, they are considering returning home.
- “Economically vulnerable”: most often women and single mothers. They have great difficulty integrating, find it hard to find work and are more often dependent on humanitarian aid or social benefits. However, they like their new country and rarely consider returning.
- “Classic war-related”: mainly older people who were forced to leave when it became impossible to stay. They are not interested in integration at all and therefore plan to return as soon as the war ends.
Since the start of the full-scale invasion, young men aged 18-22 were not allowed to leave the country during this period. At the end of August 2025, the state officially opened its borders to them. The largest wave of migration occurred in September. In total, around 100,000 people in this age group left the country and did not return.
How many Ukrainians will NOT return home, and what impact will this have on the economy?
The loss of the working-age population and young people is a real demographic disaster, the consequences of which Ukraine will fully feel in about 15 years. That is when the current generation aged 45-65 will begin to retire en masse, and there will be labour shortages in the labour market.
According to our calculations, between 2 and 3 million Ukrainians will not return home in various scenarios. It is also alarming that older people (50+) are most eager to return, while only a third of young people plan to return home.
The failure of such a large number of citizens to return will have a significant impact on Ukraine’s GDP:
“We have already said that this is a demographic loss, a loss of the working-age population. This is reflected in a decline and stagnation of our GDP. We estimate that we will lose between 2% and 10% of GDP each year, depending on the scenario and approach to calculations,” adds Iryna Ippolitova, senior researcher at the CES.
How have the incomes of Ukrainians abroad changed, and what are they planning to do after the temporary protection in the EU is lifted?
The incomes of Ukrainians abroad tend to average out: those who had low earnings in Ukraine see their incomes rise to the average level of the host country, while those who had high earnings see their incomes decline slightly. Refugees demonstrate a high level of integration: 60% of adults are already working and rely on their own income rather than social benefits. However, more than half of them are working outside their profession.
In December 2025, we asked respondents about their plans after the temporary protection in the EU is lifted in 2027. The majority are determined to find ways to stay abroad. 39% will try to obtain other legal documents in the EU, 14% are ready to stay even without documents, and another 14% will return to Ukraine but will look for ways to leave again. Only 29% said they would definitely return if their protection was not extended.
“So far, we see that the balance is still leaning towards staying abroad. But we must understand that temporary protection will be lifted next year, and we do not know when the war, which is our main reason for leaving, will end. In other words, people are now responding based on these two factors: that the war seems to be continuing and that temporary protection is about to be withdrawn. In this situation, people are still focused on finding a way to stay abroad.”
More statistics, charts, and detailed findings are available in the full version of the study.
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“What’s Up With the Economy?” is a podcast by the Centre for Economic Strategy in cooperation with Hromadske Radio, supported by PrivatBank.
The podcast is available in Ukrainian on different platforms via the link.
