Conflicts and persecution caused "significantly more people" to flee to Europe than economic causes or natural disasters in 2015 and 2016, according to a study published by the Munich-based Institute for Economic Research (ifo) on Tuesday.
According to the ifo, around 1.4 million "refugees and irregular migrants" arrived in Europe in 2015 and 2016.
The study found that 77 percent of respondents cited "war, conflict or persecution" in their home country as the main cause for fleeing to Europe, while 21 percent cited economic reasons, "including the lack of basic necessities".
Two percent of respondents cited "natural disasters or other reasons" as the main cause for leaving their home country, according to the study.
"Our results create transparency and objectivity in the debate," said Panu Poutvaara, head of the ifo Centre for International Institutional Comparison and Migration Research.
"Contrary to what is often assumed, we show that refugees that crossed the Mediterranean in 2015 and 2016 are better educated before the conflicts than the average in their countries of origin," emphasized ifo researcher and study co-author Poutvaara.
Poutvaara and his co-author Cevat Giray Aksoy, chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, analyzed the anonymous responses of migrants arriving in Europe via the Mediterranean routes between 2015 and 2016.
The ifo study showed that the motivation to leave a home country varied greatly depending on where the migrants came from.
According to the study, more than 90 percent of respondents from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan and Syria fled due to conflicts in their home country, while less than 10 percent of respondents from Algeria and Morocco said this was their motive.
The ifo study stated that "fugitives from crisis countries are on average better educated and have a higher income than those left behind at home".
The same applied to women who had "come for economic reasons" as they too had a better education than women who have stayed in their country of origin, the researchers said.
More than 80 percent of those interviewed by the ifo researchers in European transit centers were men and the researchers also found that more young people had left their home countries than older people.
"Policies that support refugees' and migrants' integration into the labour market need to be tailored to their skills," which could promote integration and help European countries "make society more inclusive for everyone," the ifo study concluded.
SOURCE: Xinhua
