The war in Ukraine has caused the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.

According to the UN, since the beginning of the war, 7.7 million refugees from Ukraine have been registered across Europe, most of whom ended up in Poland.

But Ukraine’s irreversible demographic decline began in the Soviet era and is the result of catastrophic population loss during World War II, as well as rapid urbanization, Al Jazeera reports.

According to the World Bank, the birth rate in Ukraine in 2020 was 1.22 children per 1,000 women, which is one of the lowest in the world.

By comparison, the global average was 2.2 and 1.4 in Canada, 1.51 in Russia, 1.56 in Great Britain and 2.21 in Peru.

Experts say that due to such rates as in Ukraine, natural population growth becomes impossible, and the aging of the population will further hinder the post-war economic recovery.

The crisis began in Soviet times

The refugee crisis is intensifying Ukraine’s irreversible demographic decline, which began in Soviet times, writes Al Jazeera.

At the dawn of independence in 1991, the population of Ukraine was 52 million people.

The official figure is currently 43 million, but this statistic is generally considered to be far from the truth.

The last census was conducted in 2001, and current figures include more than 2 million residents of annexed Crimea, as well as several million residents of two separatist states – the so-called “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk in the southeast.

Before the war, at least 8 million Ukrainians worked full-time or part-time in Europe thanks to the visa-free policy. It was also relatively easy to get a work visa.

Many worked as seasonal farm labourers, drivers, construction workers or cashiers and returned home only at Easter or Christmas.

From each paycheck, they save enough money for a new house or apartment in their home or hometown.

In countries like Poland, where millions of young Poles migrated to the west, becoming the famous “Polish plumbers,” Ukrainians saw an opportunity in the lack of jobs.

And some young Ukrainians, familiar with life in the European Union, now intend to build a career in the bloc.

The need for a repatriation program

“The mass return of refugees is related to the war situation, and in the long term – to the strategy of economic development,” Kyiv-based analyst Oleksiy Kush told Al Jazeera.

Ukraine needs a repatriation program, but it is impossible without economic recovery, he said.

The boom is only possible if the entire economic model is rethought, as Ukraine’s financial elites are too used to living off grain and steel exports, he said.

“Otherwise, Ukraine is threatened with a demographic crisis – the population is less than 30 million, of which 10 million are pensioners,” Kush concluded.