Local Migration Security and Human Capital Retention: Institutional Responses of Ukrainian Communities Under War Conditions
Abstract
The wartime displacement of Ukraine’s population has intensified the need for territorial communities to retain human capital and integrate internally displaced persons (IDPs). This study examines how representatives of local self-government bodies (LSGs) assess the institutional and managerial capacity of communities to respond to these challenges. The empirical evidence comes from an online expert survey of 51 LSG representatives from 51 urban, settlement, and rural communities in 11 regions of Ukraine, conducted in April - May 2025. Descriptive and inferential statistics, including a one-sample t-test, a Wilcoxon signed-rank test, and normalized Shannon entropy, were applied to analyze the survey results. Respondents most frequently associated community capacity to retain human capital with youth, transport, and medical infrastructure; cultural and recreational spaces; industrial parks and innovation hubs; and housing development. The findings also reveal limited local analytical capacity: 10% of respondents reported systematic migration monitoring, 44% reported monitoring that required improvement, and 46% reported no monitoring. The results characterize institutional perceptions and practices rather than residents’ migration intentions. The study extends the territorial resilience perspective by showing how decentralized wartime governance links migration security with youth policy, social infrastructure, IDP integration, local employment, intersectoral cooperation, and migration monitoring. The findings can inform local migration-security strategies and human-capital retention programs, subject to the limitations of an institutionally homogeneous, cross-sectional expert sample.
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