Beyond the Battlefield: The Impact of War on Expatriates’ Health and Livelihoods

Mounir Karadja, Akib Khan () and Linna Martén ()
Additional contact information
Akib Khan: House of Sustainable Society (HoSS), Postal: Stockholm School of Economics, P.O. Box 6501, SE-113 83 Stockholm, Sweden
Linna Martén: Stockholm University

No 2026-2, HoSS Working Paper Series from Stockholm School of Economics, House of Sustainable Society (HoSS)

Abstract: We study how expatriates cope when conflict breaks out in their homeland. Using Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine as a natural experiment, we identify causal effects using a matched difference-in-differences design, comparing incumbent Ukrainian migrants in Sweden to matched migrants from other countries. We show that Ukrainian expatriates experience immediate and persistent mental health deterioration—a 30 percent increase in psychiatric prescription use that remains elevated three years later—while simultaneously increasing employment and earnings. A simple framework rationalizes this pattern through two channels operating in opposite directions: concern for family safety worsens mental health and raises the disutility of work, while heightened financial responsibilities raise the return to earning income. Consistent with reduced reservation wages, Ukrainians take on secondary jobs, exit unemployment faster into lower-quality jobs, and earn less than comparable coworkers. Earnings effects concentrate among migrants from more war-exposed regions, while mental health effects attenuate in Swedish municipalities with more Ukrainian refugee arrivals. Results replicate in European and US survey data. As global migration and armed conflict both reach historic highs, the findings show that the welfare costs of war extend across borders, shaping the well-being and economic behavior of expatriates worldwide.

Keywords: Migration; Armed conflict; Mental health; Labor supply; Earnings; Refugees; Diaspora populations; Natural experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 F22 I12 J61 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 94 pages
Date: 2026-06-02, Revised 2026-06-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mig
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://swopec.hhs.se/hamisu/papers/hamisu2026_002.2.pdf Full text - Revised 2026-06-05 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:hamisu:2026_002

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in HoSS Working Paper Series from Stockholm School of Economics, House of Sustainable Society (HoSS) Stockholm School of Economics, P.O. Box 6501, 113 83 Stockholm, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jenny Bergenheim ().