Migrant Surveys: Methodological challenges and insights

Written by Aizhan Sakentay, summer intern 2025 at the Growth CoLab at CEU

The growth in global migration, and the recent events of international mass displacement of populations, have spurred the development of various migrant surveys. We reviewed 12 such surveys of the displaced Ukrainian population in Germany, Poland and Austria, with the aim of understanding the surveys’ methodological frontier and challenges. We find that one of the main challenges has to do with obtaining a sample that is representative of the population of interest. 

Since the 1960s, international migration has gained importance due to a mix of economic, political and technological shifts. Since then, the nature of migrant groups has evolved from scattered emigrants to globally connected networks - diasporas. The remittances of diasporas are a vital source of capital for many developing countries. In addition, diasporas actively lobby host governments and influence political events in their countries of origin. Technologically, the internet and social media have dismantled geographical barriers, which has allowed diasporas to maintain constant, real-time connections and organize with unparalleled ease. 

Such growing influence has made understanding diaspora communities and newly emerging migrant communities more critical than ever. Migrant and diaspora surveys are thus of increasing importance as they uncover the ties between individuals and their countries of origin and residence. These surveys help reveal perceptions, intentions, and socio-economic conditions that are otherwise invisible, offering critical insight for policymakers and humanitarian organizations. For displaced populations such as Ukrainian refugees, understanding their attachment to the country of origin, the challenges that arise during the process of integration in their host countries is critical for designing functioning support systems. 

However, conducting migrant surveys comes with unique challenges. One of the defining characteristics of migrant groups  - their dynamic nature, is also the biggest challenge that arises when studying them. That is, frequent relocations, changing legal statuses and barriers in communication makes it difficult to capture a fully representative voice. Governments and international organizations often lack the necessary data on geographic distribution, size, and dynamics of these populations. A key example of this case is the displaced Ukrainian population, where the migration flow since 2022 has created a large, geographically dispersed, and continuously changing community.  

Migrant surveys differ significantly from typical surveys of the national population. The dynamic nature of the population comes as the first challenge. It is fast-changing and typically under-represented in census data. This makes defining the population and establishing a baseline for the study exceptionally difficult. Establishing who counts towards the population is another challenge. How do we define the population? Is it limited to individuals born in a specific place, with parents from a specific place, or someone displaced by a particular conflict. The selected definition impacts the survey's scope and results. Organizations such as IOM and UNHCR address the first challenge by collaborating with government bodies, benefitting from adaptive sampling methods and multi-language surveys to reach dispersed communities.

Another key difference is that unlike most nationals, migrants tend to nurture ties with two or sometimes even more countries. This affects the content of the survey. While national surveys assume that a person’s history mainly unfolded within the borders of a nation state, migrant surveys focus on understanding the experiences of a person both in the host country, and the country of origin. Some migrant surveys also aim at understanding the geographic pattern of individual migration, as some migrants have experiences in more than two places. Certain groups of migrants may have unique issues that form the basis for new survey topics. For instance, the topics of housing and financial stability, intentions to return home and mental health stand out in surveys of displaced populations. The topics of attachment to the home country, intentions to return, and engagements with the home country are common in surveys of established diasporas.

Lessons from Surveys of the displaced Ukrainians in Austria, Germany and Poland

Numerous surveys have now been implemented in order to capture the perspective of the new and continuously changing community of Ukrainians, displaced since the start of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. A review of surveys conducted in the period of 2022 to 2025, focusing on key host countries such as Germany, Poland and Austria offers an outlook of insights and challenges that arise when studying migrant populations.

Several different institutions have attempted to study the displaced Ukrainian population in Austria. The UNHCR conducted a survey in early 2023 to assess the intentions and living conditions of Ukrainian households in Austria. The “Austria - Survey of Intentions and Perspectives of Refugees from Ukraine” study (2023) highlighted housing vulnerabilities and return intentions of the surveyed population.  The Austrian Integration Fund (ÖIF), in collaboration with the Austrian Institute for Family Research also conducted its own series of annual surveys from 2022 to 2024. This series primarily targeted Ukrainian displaced women aged 18-55 who are registered with the ÖIF and/or are taking German language courses. For the later wave of the series, the survey sample was extended to cover men aged 18-55.  While the ÖIF surveys have increased their sample size over time, the sample is not representative. It uses non-probability sampling, relying on a specific group of people that are registered with the ÖIF. This limits the generalizability of the results, as it potentially omits the offline populations, as well as those who are less likely to register with ÖIF or attend language courses. The surveys are conducted online and use closed-ended questions, which can be useful for easier quantitative analysis but may lead to incomplete findings. Nevertheless, this is a good example of a synergetic collaboration between a research institute and an organization that holds high-quality individual-level information about the underlying population of interest. The survey design can be improved by using the ÖIF data on the full population of the displaced Ukrainians, in order to design probability weights for the sample, a key element that is currently missing.  

Germany, in turn, has seen several large-scale, more methodologically rigorous surveys. The IAB-BAMF-SOEP surveys are thus particularly noteworthy, as they provide what can be considered a representative sample through post-mail contact and weighing the results against official government statistics. These surveys were targeted at Ukrainians who arrived between February and August 2022. The IOM has also conducted surveys in Germany, however most of them being rapid online assessments that explicitly did not claim generalizability. 

The IAB-BAMF-SOEP surveys employed a mix of CAPI, CASI, and CAWI surveying modes, including both paper and online questionnaires. Such an approach, ensuring a broader reach and reduced bias, has allowed them to gather detailed socio-demographic data, including employment, education, language skills and future plans. Some other surveys have attempted to provide a broader geographical reach, trying to capture the global Ukrainian community. Such attempts have been done by the Center for Economic Studies (CES), a research institute that advises the Ukrainian government, in a series of annual surveys - the latest in 2025, which aimed to reach Ukrainians living abroad, outside of Russia and Belarus. However, the sample size of the survey is small - 1000 respondents. This has disadvantages. It is difficult, for instance, to understand the heterogeneity in experiences of the Ukrainian population living across different countries, differences that are potentially significant. In presence of such heterogeneity,  the survey findings will have low statistical significance. Furthermore, their selected method of reaching the population presents another downside of the survey - the survey invitation was disseminated via Ukrainian mobile operators, which cannot reach those who have  opted for local numbers in the countries where they reside. It is unclear which share of the displaced Ukrainian population actively uses numbers served by the Ukrainian operators.

VOX Ukraine has conducted a survey in Poland, with an aim of understanding the intentions of Ukrainians to return back to Ukraine. “The Crossing back to Ukraine” survey by IOM provides a unique snapshot of mobility patterns of displaced Ukrainians in Poland. Its non-representative sample was limited to Ukrainian refugees and migrants with a smartphone. 

A comparison of these surveys underscores the critical issues of sample quality and representation. While some surveys such as by IAB-BAMF-SOEP have achieved a certain degree of representativeness through probability sampling and weighting, other surveys rely on non-probability methods which are susceptible to bias. This distinction is important to note when evaluating the survey findings, as non-representative samples can over-represent certain demographics such as the educated, the younger, or the tech-savvy population, while under-representing others. 

Another critical factor is the language of the survey. While many of the surveys were translated to Ukrainian language to capture the population, the original formulation of the questions might still introduce misinterpretations. This challenge has been addressed only in part of the surveys, where they blind translate the questionnaire from Ukrainian back to the original language of formulation to ensure the proper translation. Other than that, there is a need for careful questionnaire design and pre-testing - so the linguistic differences do not introduce biases or misinterpretations. 

By addressing these challenges and employing rigorous methodologies, researchers can gain a more profound and actionable understanding of the migrant communities, ensuring their voices are accurately heard and their needs are effectively met. The key to successful surveying by smaller research organizations is to team up with governmental or international organizations that have comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date individual-level data of migrant populations of interest.

This blog is based on research conducted by Aizhan Sakentay and Mahmoud Al-Hamdan, during their eight-week internship with the Growth CoLab at CEU in the Summer of 2025.

Aizhan Sakentay and Mahmoud Al-Hamdan, Summer Interns at the Growth CoLab at CEU 2025.