How Do (Mis-)Perceptions of Refugee Gender Composition Shape Attitudes? Evidence from a Survey Experiment

People’s perceptions of others, particularly those from other countries, can shape their attitudes and willingness to offer solidarity. We study public beliefs about the gender composition of forcibly displaced populations in a large online survey experiment. Participants ( n = 13,008) representative of the adult population of six EU countries, consistently underestimated the share of women among the people displaced by the Russian war on Ukraine. We show that a belief-correction intervention effectively prompted updates in public beliefs, aligning them more closely with actual numbers. The source of information matters: updates were greater when the intervention cites official statistics rather than other people’s opinions. Although female migrants are typically preferred, the intervention did not change perceptions regarding current refugees’ impact on crime and economy or policy preferences (family reunification). While all these measures correlate with beliefs about gender composition, the intervention did not significantly affect any of them.