The number of refugees seeking asylum in European Union states (plus Norway and Switzerland) surged to a record 1.3 million last year, more than double the number of asylum seekers in 2014, according to a Pew survey published Tuesday. Nearly half of those migrants were young males.
According to data analyzed by the Pew Research Center, 42% of asylum seekers in Europe were men between the ages of 18 and 34.
Men were disproportionately represented among all groups of refugees seeking asylum in Europe, but the disparity was especially pronounced among Middle East and African countries.
The number of asylum seekers from the worn-torn nations of Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan more than quadrupled between 2013 and 2015. Young men made up nearly 40% of the refugees coming into Europe from Syria and Afghanistan, and nearly 50% of the refugees from Iraq.
Germany, Hungary, and Sweden were to top destinations for asylum-seeking refugees, accounting for more than half of the 1.3 million migrants who arrived in 2015. Germany alone accounted for one third of the refugees received last year, including 159,000 from Syria.
European leaders have struggled to deal with the refugee crisis throughout the continent, but have shown few signs of changing course despite the fact that significant majorities across Europe oppose of the European Union’s handling of the refugee situation.
The dramatic overrepresentation of young males among the refugee population has led to heightened concerns about terrorism and sexual assault. In Germany, for example, more than 1,200 women were reported to have been sexually assaulted by as many as 2,000 men. About half of the 120 male perpetrators identified were found to have been foreign nationals who recently arrived in the country.
The refugee data also raises the potential for an impending demographic crisis that could further threaten the stability of the European Union.
The European crisis has also become an issue in the presidential election in the United States, with Republican nominee Donald Trump calling for a ban on Syrian refugees and other Muslims immigrants until “our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”