Threat to life or livelihoods: analyzing employment attitudes of Ukrainian war immigrants with Bayesian model averaging

This paper presents empirical research on the employment attitudes of Ukrainian households that fled to one of the largest cities in Poland, during a mass migration at the onset of the Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It identifies the characteristics of households with adult members immediately employed and those planning for future employment in Poland. Based on socio-economic migration theories and empirical knowledge, the paper delves into the role of the economic motive for these households’ migration. The study is based on household-level survey data collected in Krakow in May 2022. The Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates technique is employed to identify the determinants of household members’ employment and their plans in this regard. The findings confirm that financial reasons partly drove Ukrainian households to migrate during the war; however, public and private assistance played distinct roles in their prompt inclusion in the labour market and their planning for employment in Poland. Additionally, the findings allow us to conclude that knowledge of the Polish language consistently played a role in their professional activation abroad.