The Effect of Household Composition on Short-term Labor Market Engagement Among Female Refugees: Evidence from the Russo-Ukrainian War

This study evaluates the causal effect of household composition, measured by three proxies (the number of adults, the number of men and the child-adult ratio) on the likelihood of labor participation and employment among female refugees who were forcibly displaced following the Russian invasion of February 2022. I use the extent of damage in original Ukrainian dwelling as an instrumental variable to overcome the endogeneity of household structure. Two-stage least squares estimations show that the presence of another adult and or male adults decreases the likelihood of both labor participation and employment while greater share of child with respect to adults induces higher likelihoods. Such results confirm how the dynamics of the division of labor and the trade-off against dependent care are demonstrated in the context of forced displacement.