War, Identity and its Economic Consequences in Ukraine

This exploratory project investigates how Ukraine’s ongoing war has shifted national and linguistic identity and how these changes influence the labor market integration of internally displaced persons (IDPs). Successful IDP labor market integration is crucial for Ukraine’s economic recovery and requires fostering social cohesion within host communities. While the war has fostered greater national cohesion and shifts toward a unified Ukrainian identity (Abramenko et al., 2024), these changes alone are insufficient to fully integrate the 3.7 million IDPs (IDMC, 2023) - nearly 10% of Ukraine’s population - displaced from predominantly Russian-speaking to predominantly Ukrainian-speaking or mixed-language regions. This project will provide a foundation for designing a randomized controlled trial (RCT) that would aim to leverage social identity to enhance IDP resilience, economic recovery and social cohesion.