Attitudes of Ukrainian refugees in Austria: gender roles, democracy, and confidence in international institutions

Abstract

Abstract The perception of cultural differences between refugee populations and host societies is central to political debates on integration. This study examines cultural values within the context of the Ukrainian refugee flows to Austria, following the Russian war of aggression. Previous research has shown that Ukrainian refugees represent a self-selected group in terms of their socioeconomic profile. However, there is limited evidence on whether and how their beliefs differ from those in their home society and align with those in their host society. Our research addresses this gap by offering a comparative analysis of two value dimensions: (1) gender roles, and (2) political attitudes. We utilize three large-scale data sources for our analyses to compare Ukrainian arrivals in Austria with the Austrian and Ukrainian resident populations. These sources include a rapid-response survey among Ukrainian arrivals in Austria conducted in 2022, and the most recent waves of the World Values Survey (WVS Ukraine 2020) and the European Values Study (EVS Austria 2018). Our results reveal a complex pattern. The gender role attitudes of Ukrainian arrivals deviate from both their home and host societies. Ukrainian refugees tend to hold more liberal gender role attitudes than the Ukrainian resident population and more traditional gender role attitudes than the Austrian resident population. When controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, the differences with the home country decrease, whereas the differences with the host country increase. This suggests that the selection of refugees in terms of education or age accounts for their in-between position in gender roles. Regarding beliefs in democracy, Ukrainian arrivals tend to align more closely with their home country than their host country. However, they indicate much more confidence in the EU than their compatriots and the Austrian resident population. The differences in attitudes towards democracy and confidence in international institutions remain stable even after accounting for sociodemographic characteristics, indicating that these differences are not due to socioeconomic self-selection processes. Finally, we find that Ukrainian arrivals from Kyiv stand out in both value dimensions, as they tend to hold less traditional gender role attitudes and have a more positive evaluation of democracy compared to those from other regions of Ukraine.