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The history of migration processes in Central Asia

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Ministry of Higher Education Science and
Innovation of the Republic of Uzbekistan,
Samarkand State University named after Sharof
Rashidov, Master of History degree .
COURSE WORK
Science : The history of migration processes in
Central Asia.
Topic: The Socio-economic Impacts of
Emigration from Uzbekistan .
Student: Suyarov Makhmudjon.
Teacher: prof. Nurulla-xodjayeva Nargis.
Samarkand-2023
2

Content
Introduction
I. Emigration methods, factors and its effects on brain
drain condition
1.1 Emigration Patterns and Drivers
1.2. Brain Drain and Human Capital
II. Influence of emigration at state economic growth and its
societal effect
2.1. Remittances and Economic Development:
2.2. Social and Cultural Impacts.
Conclusion
References
3

I. Emigration methods, factors and its effects on brain drain condition
1.1 Emigration Patterns and Drivers
This section will search into the reasons behind the emigration from
Uzbekistan, examining the push 1
and pull factors that influence individuals'
decisions to leave their homeland. Factors such as economic disparities, political
instability, lack of job prospects, and limited access to social services will be
discussed. Additionally, the role of family reunification, educational opportunities,
and global migration networks will be explored.
After independence migration has become one of the important
characteristics of social and economic development in Uzbekistan. Beginning of
this process first of all was movement of non-Uzbek nationals (especially
Russians, Ukrains, Belorussians, etc) from Uzbekistan for permanent residence to
their and their parents’ homelands. According to official statistic data, only in 1992
the number of people who emigrated from Uzbekistan was 424086 or about 3
percent of the total population of the country in that year. At the same time, from
the beginning of 1993, the number of people leaving the country permanently
began declining sharply. If in 1993 the total number of people emigrated was 16
percent less than it was 1992, within five years the indicator declined more than
twice and in 1997 made only 195001. During 1997-2009 emigration dynamics kept
at the level of about 200 thousand persons per year. Analysis of the statistic data
from different sources also show that among the people emigrating from
Uzbekistan, the share of the people leaving to Russia was the biggest. According to
ethnic structure of the population of Uzbekistan, Russians used to make up the
biggest minority group (it is true for current situation as well) and accordingly we
can suppose that among the people who left to the Russian Federation during
1990s Russian minorities were the majority of this group.
1
Anannya Chakraborty, Prof. SK Acharya and Chethana.K. The Push Factors of Migration: An Empirical Study //
International Conference on Agriculture and Allied Sciences: The Productivity, Food Security and Ecology.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338178046 , 2019. P-127.
5

Another big emigration outflow from Uzbekistan was distributed among
Central Asian states, and from total emigration during 1991-2008, these countries
had about 20 percent share. Among all these countries Kazakhstan was the most
preferred by the migrants based on all indicators 1
. Recent emigration from
Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan almost doubled in comparison to the beginning of
1990s, and its share in total emigration increased from 8.9 percent in 1991 to 25.2
percent in 2001 and in recent years it is reaching 35-40 percent, which shows
evidence of changing emigration directions. As we saw above, emigration of non-
Uzbek nationals which began with high numbers after 1991 continued slowing
down its dynamics, while number of people going abroad for business or
temporary work purposes began rising.
From the beginning of 2000, the new stage in these migration processes
began which is closely connected with high economic growth in Russia and
Kazakhstan thanks to their rich oil and natural gas resources, as well as newly
appeared opportunities for citizens of Uzbekistan to have work experience abroad
through official intergovernmental agreements. A lot of people from different
backgrounds and geographical areas of Uzbekistan began migrating to Russia and
Kazakhstan to find a temporary job in different sectors of the economy. This
phenomenon is connected with different push and pull factors like high number of
unregistered unemployment, low level of real wages, relative high payment rates
for labor in the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan, as well as a non-visa regime
for crossing borders of these countries. According to data presented by the State
Customs Committee (the only available data and only for 2008 and 2010) which is
based on peoples’ declarations at customs check points about their purpose of
travel, the number of people leaving the country to work abroad in 2010 was
almost 702 thousand. If we compare this number with 2008, we see that it
increased by 6 percent 2
.
1
Ahunov M. , Kakhkharov J., Parpiev Z., Inna Wolfson. Socio-economic consequences of labor migration in
Uzbekistan. 2015. P-4.
2
www.stat.uz
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More interesting facts are provided by the gender division of these people
going to work abroad. For example according to data for 2008, the share of women
in the number of labor migrants was 14 percent and made up almost 90 thousand.
In 2010, this share increased to 15 percent and made up 107 thousand. However,
the percentage change in the number of women traveling for the purposes of
working abroad in 2010 over 2008 was 19 percent. The above stated fact provides
confirmation to experts’ opinions that, in the last years, along with the rising
number of men labor migrants, the number of women going to work abroad is
increasing, which shows evidence of the changing role of women in the family.
In order to shed brighter light on the issue, in this section we will use also
the results of sociological survey carried out by the research center “Tahlil”. The
survey was carried out in 12 regions of the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Republic
of Karakalpakstan and Tashkent city through the method of a contact interview and
standardized questionnaire. In total, 1514 people participated in the survey. Among
the interviewed, men made up 47.2 percent and women 52.8 percent, while 36.4
percent of them were inhabitants of cities and 63.6 percent lived in villages.
Besides this, we will closely refer to the outcomes we had from our small survey in
the form of interviews in two regions (Navoiy and Kashkadarya) of Uzbekistan
during November-December, 2009. According to the survey by “Tahlil”, since
2005, popularity of the Russian Federation in preferences of potential migrants
among countries where they would like to go for temporary earnings has been
increasing; so, if in 2004, 29.7 percent of potential migrants were intending to go
to Russia, then in 2006, this number increased to 53.7 percent. According to this
indicator Russia is ahead of all countries
For our research it is also very important to understand what are the main
factors influencing the people’s decision on migration, we can
analyse results of the survey by “Tahlil”, where 46.9 percent of respondents
support their decision to go abroad for temporary work with the need for earning
money for material security and financial support of their families; while 22.1
percent and 24.5 percent wanted to earn money as the solution of their important
7

social and everyday problems and improve material welfare respectively. Only 6.4
percent stated that they were eager to collect money for start-up capital for
business activity.
It must be underlined that during our small survey it was very interesting to
understand whether these people are interested in working in government or the
private sector, or beginning their own entrepreneurial activity in spite of migration.
All of respondents indicated that they would prefer to work at home rather than
going to foreign countries if they had opportunity to earn appropriate money. But
at the same time, they had doubt about the possibility of earning appropriate
money through working in the government sector (as well as the private sector) or
beginning a small business. Of course the level of wages in both sectors cannot be
said to be at a satisfactory level in comparison with earnings abroad. But
respondents’ doubts concerned with possibilities of developing small business or
private entrepreneurship seems to be unjustified as our previous research showed
that currently in Uzbekistan there is very good institutional and legal basis for the
development of a small business and entrepreneurship. Obviously, there are some
factors that are an obstacle for further development of small business and
entrepreneurship which could be optimal alternative for labor migrants. We already
examined these obstacles in our previous research. The question was: What are the
main problems currently existing in small entrepreneurship field and what are the
main hindering factors in its further development?
Strong push factors, which are very important for all labor migrants in the
world, like unemployment and low wages 1
. This fact already shows that for the
biggest part of migrants working abroad wasn’t a way to survive or to make ends
meet, but it is a faster way to collect money for concrete purposes like weddings,
purchase of a car or a house, which means the prevalence of pull factors over push
factors like higher wages in taking the migration decision among labor migrants
from Uzbekistan. Unfortunately, minority of migrants were thinking about saving
1
William Seitz. International Migration and Household Well-Being Evidence from Uzbekistan // Policy Research
Working Paper 8910, 2019. P -16.
8

money for start-up capital for future entrepreneurship activity when they took
decision to go abroad to work. At the same time, they haven’t almost wanted to
earn some money abroad to establish their own small business at home It was also
interesting to look at the impact of push and pull factors from gender perspective,
as gradually the share of female labor migrants has been increasing. The analysis
of the survey results shows that lower salaries and a need to gather money for
wedding have been indicated by 12 and 11 respondents out of 22 female working
migrants that took part in the survey, respectively. The age and marital status of
these respondents show that lower salaries were mostly stated as a push factor by
18-31 years age group who are either single or divorced young women. While
gathering money for wedding was one of main factors influencing the migration
decision of the respondents in age group of 34-50, that are married middle age
woman with children. A desire to collect money for purchasing a house or an
apartment incited migration of the 10 female respondents. The factors like
“unemployment” and “to gather money for higher education” were indicated by 6
of the women migrants that participated in the survey. Only two and one of the
female respondents stated that needed start-up capital for entrepreneurship activity
and wanted to earn money to organize own small business, respectively.
Different research on migration states that the very poor do not migrate as
they cannot afford the travel costs, and in case their travel expenses are covered by
the mediators, they risk becoming victims of slavery. Our results on “financing the
migrant’s travel expenses” along with other above discussed answers confirm that
a big share of migrants from Uzbekistan are in the middle income range as 67
percent of them indicated that their travel to Russia is financed by own (family)
means. 23 percent of them borrowed the money for the ticket and other expenses
from relatives, while 10 percent of them borrowed money from friends. Only two
percent of the migrants indicated other sources as a main means for financing their
travel expenses. Of course there are a considerable number of very poor people
who travel to Russia from Uzbekistan in search of work without having any
money, which is possible due to agreements with mediators, whom they have to
9

pay back by working when they arrive in Russia. Most of these people end up in
slavery and get no pay in the end.
According to survey results, only 39 percent of the migrants had known
where they would be working before arriving in Russia, i.e. they had an arranged
work placement. 31 percent of them replied that they had had some information
about their future work placement but didn’t have an exact idea. At the same time,
almost one third of all respondents declared that they hadn’t known what they
would be doing when they arrived in Russia, which means that they were in a risk
group which could be cheated, exploited or left without any job It was also
interesting to explore how the migrants from Uzbekistan make their way to Russia.
10

1.2. Brain Drain and Human Capital:
Emigration often leads to the loss of skilled professionals, resulting in a
phenomenon known as brain drain. This section will analyze the impact of brain
drain on Uzbekistan's human capital development. It will highlight the loss of
highly skilled individuals, such as doctors, engineers, and researchers, and the
subsequent effects on the country's healthcare system, infrastructure development,
and scientific advancements. Brain drain is also known as “The human capital
flight”. It can be simply defined as the mass emigration of technically skilled
people from one country to another country. Brain-drain can have many reasons,
for example, political instability of a nation, lack of opportunities, health risks,
personal conflicts etc 1
. They are introduced by observing the emigration of the
various technologists, doctors and scientists, from various developing countries
(including Europe) to more developed nations like USA. The Human flight and
brain drain indicator considers the economic impact of human displacement (for
economic or political reasons) and the consequences this may have on a country’s
development. The higher the index, the greater the human displacement
Brain drain (even it is not significant in the current stage) might cause
underdevelopment of particular social and economic sectors where skilled labor is
needed in the medium and long terms. However, big number of people who leave
to work abroad each year, and a significant share of which are turning to temporary
labor migration as their permanent life style, are already decreasing payments
towards the Pension Fund (as they do not have official job in Uzbekistan and do
not make a contribution to the fund). This will have serious financial problems
and will create an extra burden to the government budget in the long term
perspective when these migrants reach pension age and will be paid a pension
according to the age. This situation in turn may bring us to a significant budget
deficit.
1
А. Р. Бяшарова ., Г. Ш. Карабаева ., Л. М. Ашурзода ., Д. Р. Таджиева ., Р. М. Латыпова . Актуальные
вопросы международной миграции в Узбекистане // Вестник Алтайской Академии Экономики и Права № 5,
2023. С -39.
11

Review of the large amount of research materials and empirical evidence
shows how international migration has both direct and indirect positive influences
on the development of sending countries through remittances, employment
generation( by investment of remittances), human capital generation, etc. T here is
evidence to indicate that additions to human capital may have their biggest impact
on growth through technical progress rather than through raising worker
productivity. Current investments on education and health of the family members
in remittance receiving families will have a positive impact on local economies in
the form of improved human capital in the medium and long term perspective.
However, there is still a huge unused potential of remittances in the form of family
savings which could give a boost to local economic growth if they were attracted
to local bank deposits and provided to local private sector as additional loans.
For that indicator, we provide data for Uzbekistan from 2007 to 2023. The
average value for Uzbekistan during that period was 6.05 index points with a
minimum of 4.8 index points in 2023 and a maximum of 7.1 index points in 2007.
The latest value from 2023 is 4.8 index points. For comparison, the world average
in 2023 based on 177 countries is 5.17 index points. The COVID-19 pandemic
threatens economies and has disrupted societies everywhere. To recover,
restore, and rebuild, every country will need to lean on expertise and the very
best of its human capital. However, in Central Asia, the bitter truth is that
systems that were already struggling before the pandemic will suffer more
because so many of their best and brightest have simply left. This brain drain
of the region’s human capital now poses nearly as big a problem as the virus
itself.
Once the pandemic fades, governments hope their citizens abroad can be
enticed home to help their native countries heal from the effects of the pandemic,
applying their knowledge, skills, networks and finances to the problems of
recovery. Yet appeals to altruism and patriotism may not be sufficient. For
instance, the region’s largest country, Uzbekistan, is already trying to find new and
additional appeals to attract these specialists to return. There are two schools of
12

thought on this in Uzbekistan. One is that many intelligent and capable Uzbeks left
because they were not valued by the established system. A second view claims that
Uzbekistan still has many well-educated and skilled people inside the country but
their skills are misapplied. Put bluntly, what remains of Uzbekistan’s human
capital base is not doing the right things, or doing them in the right places 1
.
When Shavkat Mirziyoyev came to power and promised to create a new
Uzbekistan and had to expand his patriotic appeals, lean on an array of new
incentives and enticements, and, ultimately, broaden the country’s political,
economic, and intellectual establishment. The patriotic piece of this appeal is the
most straightforward. Proud of their ancient history, culture, and scientific
heritage, Uzbeks have always shared the dream of a prosperous, truly independent
society where people could achieve their own dreams and every citizen have a
chance to thrive. In this, Uzbekistan is not unique. The ‘Uzbek dream’ has echoes
in most developing countries, including those that are considered to be fast-rising
powers, such as China and India. Like Uzbeks, millions of their citizens also live
and work in the more advanced economies of North America, Europe, Australia,
and New Zealand. And also just like those countries, millions of Uzbeks have
sought opportunities for study and work abroad, settling wherever they can best
pursue their professional and economic dreams.
Both sides of Uzbekistan’s human capital debate reflect elements of the true
picture. Many talented Uzbeks have indeed emigrated in the face of a system that
has not known how to appreciate them. At the same time, many of the talented
Uzbeks who remain are underutilised, underpaid, or undervalued. Adham
Bekmurodov leads an ambitious government effort, ‘El-yurt umidi’, or the
Nation’s Hope Foundation. With an initial state investment of $75 million at its
launch in late 2018, the programme envisioned training 5,000 specialists within
two to three years at the top schools around the world.
1
Imomova N. Reversing brain drain is the key to Uzbekistan’s future // https://cabar.asia/en/reversing-brain-drain-
is-the-key-to-uzbekistan-s-future , 18.12. 2023.
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II. Influence of emigration at state economic growth and its societal effect
2.1. Remittances and Economic Development:
Remittances, the money sent back home by emigrants, play a crucial role in
the economic development of Uzbekistan. This section will examine the
significance of remittances as a source of income and foreign exchange earnings
for the country. It will analyze the contribution of remittances to poverty reduction,
consumption patterns, and investment in various sectors of the economy.
Furthermore, the challenges and potential risks associated with overreliance on
remittances will be discussed.
Remittances are a rather new phenomenon for Uzbekistan which has
appeared after independence and reached big amounts after 2000. In the middle
and late 90’s, inflow of remittances was especially through unofficial channels, i.e.
passing outside banking or money transfer systems. Therefore, it was difficult to
calculate the amount of money brought to the country by laborers from abroad. In
recent years several money transfer systems have begun operating actively in the
Uzbekistan market. Again here the absence of official and publicly available data
on total amount of incoming remittances forces us to use secondary data from
some and very rare research pieces on remittances in Uzbekistan, and carry out our
own estimations using different sources of data. In this connection we try to
analyze the dynamic of incoming remittances to Uzbekistan by dividing it into two
periods. First – 2002-2006, data for which was acquired from the research of
Center for Economic Research, where the remittances data was calculated by
authors of the report. Second – 2007-2011, where we calculated based on official
amount of remittances sent through money transfer systems from Russia and
Kazakhstan. The dynamics of incoming remittances during 2002-2006 is directly
connected with the slowly increasing number of labor migrants who were leaving
to work in Russia and Kazakhstan due to improved economic conditions in those
countries and the rising demand for a cheaper labor force. during 2002-2006
annual flow of remittances to the country increased five times, making up a total of
1365 mil. USD in 2006, which is equal to 8.2 percent of GDP of Uzbekistan (CER,
14

2007). If we refer to statistical evidence we witness that the biggest share of these
remittances are thanks to the migrants working in Russia.
Russia has the leading role, providing 78 percent of total remittances, while
Kazakhstan, which became considerably popular among migrants in last decade,
has only a 5 percent share. This picture can be exactly due to the fact that big
enough share of migrants’ money from Kazakhstan is sent home through friends,
relatives, etc. or brought by migrants personally. The reason for this is the closer
distance to their homes and the relatively less risky chance of losing money by
migrants while crossing Uzbek-Kazakh border. Money flows from the USA and
Korea, both of which possess a 3 percent share. In this case, again we can say that
the number is interesting as only a few number of people can manage to go to the
USA or Korea for a job, but the issue is that migrants in these countries on average
earn a much greater amount of money than their compatriots in Russia and
Kazakhstan
In order to calculate the dynamics of incoming remittances to Uzbekistan
during 2007-2011, we used data from the Central Bank of the Russian Federation
and the National Bank of Kazakhstan on cross-border remittances via money
transfer operators, and their estimated share in total amount of remittances received
by households in Uzbekistan. The amount of incoming remittances during 2007-
2001 was calculated based on the following logic: According to experts’ opinion,
in the second half of 2000, outflow of migrants (here cumulative causation and
“migrant syndrome” seem have played crucial role) and incoming remittances had
another wave of momentum and increased sharply. Besides this, in the second half
of 2000 thanks to the increased number of money transfer operators, and the
decreased price of transactions through these operators due to high competition,
the share of remittances being sent through unofficial channels decreased
dramatically. Thus according to experts’ estimates about 90 percent of total
remittances are sent from Russia and Kazakhstan and about 10 percent of these
remittances come through unofficial channels.
15

Now let’s look in brief at what are main influences of remittances on the
economy. As we know, the main impact of remittances on GDP is the rise in the
demand from side of the population in result of the increase of disposable income
In macroeconomic context, interrelation between remittances and GDP has an
indirect character of influence. This means that remittances first raise gross income
of the population, which in turn forms disposable income. Disposable income
generates demand from the population and households. Plus, only aggregate
demand forms dynamics of GDP in the short and medium periods.
Elements of aggregate demand are current government expenditures,
demand for investment resources and external demand. Here it must be underlined
that the difficulty of quantitative estimation of the impact of remittances on GDP
connected with the fact that, besides remittances a lot of other factors have an
effect on the level of disposable income such as: an increase in wages, expansion
of the private sector, foreign economic activity, etc. as well as processes of
liberalization and reformation of the economy have a solid effect on the income of
the population. Special to Uzbekistan is that, people get part of their income from
the sales of fruits and vegetables grown on homestead land, while part of the
population earns some money thanks to their unregistered, small commercial
activity which doesn’t get its attraction in the income statistics of the population. In
the research done by the Center for economic Research in 2007, authors tried to
study remittances and their role in the economy of the country.
Of course, thanks to remittances we can see the reduction of inequality and
the rise of monetization in the economy. But at the same time, we cannot agree
with the item regarding new skills and technology enhancing creation of new
sectors, as most of the migrants are working in such sectors where they cannot
acquire any new skills or knowledge which they could use at home. In part
concerned with the negative impacts, authors provided more realistic picture.
The other half of respondents was enjoying USD 600 or less per month in
average At the same time, 48 percent of them confirmed that they receive so
called “grey wages”: Directly getting cash from employer, which means that they
16

cannot count for any kind of holiday or sick pay, not to mention, some for a
pension or compensation in case of losing their job. Only 38 percent of all
respondents claimed that they receive the salary through payroll. However, six
percent lucky owners of bank accounts replied that their salaries are transferred to
bank accounts.
As discussed in previous chapters, the positive impact of out labor
migration to origin communities comes through remittances, new skills,
technology transfers and etc. However in our case, this impact can be mostly
through the remittances, as the majority of labor migrants from Uzbekistan work in
low skilled jobs and there cannot be any discussion about new skills or
technologies which could be applied further in development of localities 1
. 97
percent of our respondents stated that they send money home, where 86 percent are
regular senders. Only 3 percent of all working migrants declared that they do not
send money back home. Among the migrants who send money home, 77 percent
send it on a monthly basis. They said that they send money each month as soon as
they get their salary, as keeping money with themselves is risky due to different
factors. They just keep a decent amount for their living and send home the rest. 13
percent of them send money every two months while only one percent sends every
three months. The biggest share or 29 percent of our respondents indicated that on
average they send more than USD 600 per month, while 10 percent was sending
USD 500-600 every month in average. Families of the other 21 percent of migrants
were enjoying the remittances in the amount of USD 400-500 per month. However
16 percent of the respondents stated that they manage to send USD 300-400, while
the other 16 percent could send only USD 200-300 per month. There were also 9
percent of migrants who complained that they cannot send more than USD 200 in
average.
As the main purpose of our research is to analyze what kind of impacts has
out labor migration on people and sending localities in Uzbekistan, we tried to get
1
Rakhimov M., Yokubov F. Uzbekistan external migration: key trends and directions // Eurasian Research Journal,
Vol. 4, No. 1, 2022. P-30.
17

labor migrants’ opinions and personal evolutions on this impact. 83 percent of
migrant workers who took part in the survey confirmed that thanks to their work
abroad their financial situation has improved considerably, as well as 70 percent of
them were happy that their wellbeing was raised and living conditions improved.
43 percent declared that they already managed to purchase or construct a house,
while 32 percent purchased a car. Working abroad and the remittances they sent
also helped 34 percent of the respondents to raise their position in the society. The
opportunity of spending more on health was indicated by 33 percent of the
migrants, while 17 percent also indicated the opportunity to provide better
education to the children. 38 percent of the respondents also managed to save a
considerable amount of money, while only 6 percent invested in establishing small
business or beginning entrepreneurship activity. There was also very interesting
result that 21 percent of our respondents declared that they acquired new
profession and skills, which is in fact a very good positive outcome. At the same
time 47 percent of the respondents claimed that working abroad doesn’t have any
negative effects, but 38 percent of them, however, accept that their labor activity
outside of their home place is associated with bad negative physiological effects on
them. Unfortunately, 14 percent of our respondents complained that during their
stay abroad their health worsened. 3 percent of them accused their work abroad for
worsening of their relations with spouses, while one percent of them were already
divorced with a spouse due to their migration abroad.
Only 6 percent of the respondents stated that they have invested in
establishing small business or beginning entrepreneurship activity using their
remittances. It was very interesting to find out why only small share of labor
migrants and their households invested in small business and entrepreneurship:
Whether this is connected with institutional factors, financial constraints, skills
shortage or some other problems. In order to find answers to this question all
respondents were asked following question: - If you want to return home and
establish your own small business or begin entrepreneurship activity, what kind of
obstacles may hinder this? More than half of the respondents indicated that the
18

savings from remittances are not enough for beginning business activity. Absence
of knowledge for organizational issues were seen as an obstacle by some working
migrants, while others also complained on the lack of managerial skills to open and
run a small business. A few of them also were concerned about the lack of
experience in the business and entrepreneurship field that could hinder them to be
successful. Our discussions with remittances receiving households that invested in
small business and entrepreneurship and opinions of different experts in the field
also confirmed above results, as in general remittances receiving households invest
in those type of businesses which need relatively small amount of financial means
and don’t require strong organizational and managerial skills and as well as
innovation, like small shops, small cafes, car repair workshops, small family
livestock farms, etc. Our previous researches and the analysis of the opportunities
for small business and entrepreneurship development in Uzbekistan which was
done within this work showed existence of well developed institutional, and legal
basis for this type of activity in the country. The results of our survey indicate that,
for more efficient use of the remittances through partly investing them in
sustainable business projects by receiving households, there is a need for further
additional financial help(in the form of loans) and organizational support for
remittances receiving household in order to stimulate them to invest in business
activity
19

2.2. Social and Cultural Impacts
Emigration has profound social and cultural implications for both the
individuals who migrate and the communities they leave behind. This section will
explore the effects of emigration on family structures, social cohesion, and the
transmission of cultural values and traditions. It will also examine the phenomenon
of transnationalism, where individuals maintain strong ties to their home country
while living abroad, and the impact of such connections on identity formation and
social integration.
The survey was carried out in Moscow during October 2010 - March 2011
among labor migrants who are citizens of Uzbekistan. Moscow was chosen as a
place for the survey based on the fact that biggest share of labor migrants come to
Russia and Moscow attracts a bulk of the total migrants thanks to wider
possibilities of employment in different sectors of the economy, including:
construction, communal services, public catering, transportation and others. The
survey was carried out in the form of interviews with the help of questionnaires
among 150 randomly selected members of the target group, i.e. migrant workers
who are Uzbekistan citizens. Before the survey it was important to determine the
approximate share of interviewees according to their employment sectors and their
gender division. According to different experts’ opinions communal services and
construction are the main sectors where labor migrants from Uzbekistan are
engaged in Moscow city. However, it was difficult to decide on precise shares.
Based on our estimations (using several experts’ opinions and the numbers
provided in different analytical materials) it was decided to have about one fifth of
our interviewees from construction sector and about quarter of interviewees from
communal services sector. The rest of our so called “sectoral quotas” for
interviewers was distributed among other sectors like retail trade, public catering,
transportation and others, according to their estimated importance for employment
of labor migrants from Uzbekistan. It was easier to decide on gender structure of
the interviewees as both experts and our data confirms the share of women in total
20

number of labor migrants to be about 15 percent 1
. The survey was carried out
directly in the work places of labor migrants or in the places where they live. The
process was carried in a friendly atmosphere, taking into consideration the
sensitivity level of each single question and questionnaires were filled directly by
interviewer based on answers from the respondents during the interviews. This
provided high quality of the results and correctness of the answers inserted in the
questionnaires.
The respondents in this age group (16-25) are the young people with
secondary or secondary-special education, who just finished high school, college
or returned from obligatory military service and mainly want to gather money for
their own wedding or further education. This type of labor migrant fall under the
category of ”grooms” – this is how some migration experts in Russia call them. In
contrast, the middle age people in the age groups of 36-40 years, 41-45 years and
46-50 years make up, on average, 8.7 percent of the total pool of respondents.
These migrant workers mostly have secondary or higher education and are the
main breadwinners of a family and want to earn money for daily consumption of
the family members, to build or reconstruct their house, to organize the weddings
of their children and others.
87.3 percent of the migrant workers who took part in the survey indicated
that they have either secondary (10-11 classes) or secondary-special education. In
contrast, only 11.3 percent of the respondents indicated possession of higher
education (Already this fact shows that biggest part of these migrant workers
potentially cannot aspire to high-skilled jobs and this makes them seek
employment mostly in 3D job sectors. Besides this, only 14 percent of the
respondents confirmed that they are fluent in Russian, while 23 percent of the
respondents indicated possession of very little Russian. At the same 37 percent and
45 percent of the respondents said that they can read and write in Russian very
little. This fact again underlines less competitiveness of these migrant workers in
1
Natalya M., Morozova A., Ekaterina K., Rudakova A., Elena S. Lukashenko. Emographic and economic
peculiarities of migration from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to Russia // International Scientific Forum «National
Interest, National Identity and National Security», Published by European Publisher, 2021 . P-645.
21

Russia’s high-skilled job market and also puts them in vulnerable position in
employment relations 1
.
The breakdown of the respondents according to their family status shows
that more than half of the migrant workers or 58 percent are married people who
are responsible for the wellbeing of their families, while divorced people make up
only 6 percent of the respondents which is, in fact, a suggesting indicator that
divorces are not welcomed in Uzbek society so far. The young people who are still
single and probably working to earn for creating a financial basis for their further
family life make up 36 percent. Ethnic structure of respondents confirms that the
majority of working migrants from Uzbekistan in Russia are Uzbeks, while others
like Tatars, Tajiks, Kyrgyzs and Kazakhs make up a small share. In our pool,
Uzbeks make up 88.7 percent and the other’s 11.3 percent, among which Tajiks
have the biggest share, i.e. 8 percent.
A very interesting result is derived from the analysis of the gender structure
of respondents, where female migrant workers have a 15 percent share. According
to most experts, the share of women in total out labor migration from Uzbekistan,
like in neighboring Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, has been steadily increasing in
recent years. The phenomenon is explained by the impact of different push and
pull factors like limited employment opportunities for women and lower wages in
the origin country, as well as wider employment chances and higher wages in
destination countries. For example, the latest research by UNIFEM states that, “…
low wages in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan put great pressure on
families, as it is very difficult to live on the earnings of a sole male breadwinner. In
order to survive, families have to rely on dual incomes and working women
become important contributors to their family budget. However, the sectors in
which women were traditionally employed in the region, such as textile
manufacturing, clothes manufacturing and others have considerably reduced their
workforce due to the economic crisis….” (UNIFEM 2009).
1
Giorgi Khishtovani., Maya Komakhidze. Reviewing Migration and Development The role of local authorities in
Central Asia // CAREC Institute. Visiting Fellow Program 2020, Migration in Central Asia, P-16 .
22

During the survey it was very important to find out if the working migrants
are the main earners for their families or if there are some other members in their
families who have monthly income, as this provides an idea about what would be
the economic situation of the family without a member working abroad. Analysis
of the results shows that 36 percent of these migrants have one more family
member either working in Uzbekistan or abroad, which means that the financial
burden of their family is shared with someone else. In case the migrant loses their
job, becomes ill or injured, or dies the family will not be left without any sources
of income and fall under poverty line. Besides this, in the families of 19.3 percent
and 14 percent of the migrants there are 2 and 3 people working and generating a
monthly income. Analysis of the age structure and migration purposes of the
migrants in this category shows that these people are mostly young single or
middle age married people who want to collect money for their wedding, purchase
of a car and for house construction. At the same time, 2 percent of the respondents
indicated that in their families there are additional 5 or 6 persons who have
monthly income besides them. In fact, these respondents are young people who
come from families with 10 or more people. Unfortunately, 22.7 percent of the
working migrants declared to be the only source of income for their families in
Uzbekistan, which shows the highly vulnerable position of their families in front of
any unexpected situation. A very interesting fact is that 38.7 percent of the
respondents declared that they do not support anyone with the money they earn in
Russia, i.e. these are the young single people who are collecting money for their
weeding or start-up capital for their future life in Uzbekistan, or middle age people
who need money for construction, purchase of car, etc.
Identification of the main pull and push factors which stimulate people in
Uzbekistan to go abroad was one of the main goals of this survey, and analysis of
the answers by respondents provides us with a very interesting picture. Among the
multiple choices provided in the questionnaire - “gathering money for wedding”
was chosen by 59 percent of the working migrants. “To gather money for purchase
of car” - was indicated as one of the decision making factors by 51 percent of
23

respondents, while gathering money to purchase or construct a house (apartment)
was indicated by 45 percent of them. Our survey confirmed that social networks
and social ties are main factors in how migrants’ find a job in the Russian
Federation.
Some very interesting facts were derived from the analysis of the answers
for question regarding the activity in which the labor migrants were engaged
before their “migrant career”. 59 percent of current migrant laborers had had a
particular job in Uzbekistan, i.e. had been employed before they decided to go
abroad in search of job. About one third of them declared that they didn’t have an
official employed position while they decided to try their luck abroad. Only 3
percent and one percent of the respondents decided to go work outside Uzbekistan
right after finishing college and obligatory military service respectively.
As it is a widely spread belief that in most migrant receiving countries
migrant workers steal jobs of local people, in recent years, in Russia anti-migrant
moods have been fueled with this belief as well. In fact, for some people in
government and political parties, this is a very good argument against why a lot of
people in Russia are unemployed while millions of foreigners are working there
and sending home billions of dollars each year. Therefore we tried to shed light on
this issue during our survey. To our question “if there were other candidates from
local people for the job which was taken by migrant workers?” – 54 percent of the
respondents replied that there weren’t any candidates for their jobs from local
people, as they do not want to do the work which is done by migrant workers. 36
percent of them indicated that they do not know if there were any other candidates
from local people or not. However, 10 percent of the respondents confirmed that
there were other local people who would have liked to have the same jobs.
“If there were other candidates for your work place from local people, why
did the employer hire you” – this was our next question to the respondents who
confirmed that there were other local candidates and to the ones who weren’t sure
if there were any other candidates or not. Majority of them, i.e. 32 percent replied
that they are preferred by employers as it is much cheaper to hire them. This is true
24

as the majority of irregular migrant workers from Uzbekistan and other Central
Asian countries work in the territory of the Russian Federation without work
permits, which makes them agree to work for the pay which is significantly less
than it must be for a local worker or the regular migrant with a work permit.
Therefore a great share of employers (especially representatives of the private
sector) is eager to hire irregular migrant workers, which can be paid much less and
can be fired anytime as they do not have any rights because of their irregular
status. In fact, this practice is mainly possible due to high corruption rates among
local officials, police and other authorities in the field of migration.
23 percent of the respondents also claimed that they were more completive
as they do not drink alcohol and obey all rules set by the employer. In fact,
alcoholism and drunkenness at work places are among the main social problems of
modern Russia. Besides this, “high levels of alcohol consumption and violent
crime are major public health concerns in the Russian Federation. Therefore
employers try to hire so called “gastarbeiters” from Central Asia most of whom do
not drink alcohol at all, and come to work sober. This is very important for the
employers functioning in the public transport sector like private taxi companies
Surprisingly, the result of this question was that five percent of the respondents
were sure that they were hired as they are more qualified for the job they have in
comparison to local candidates. However 30 percent of the respondents were not
sure why the employer gave preference to them over local candidates. 32 percent
of the small and medium businesses (which took part in the survey) stated that the
locals would work in the same jobs which are currently occupied by migrant
workers if the salaries were higher. At the same time 28 percent of the small
businesses and 15 percent of medium businesses consider that Russian workers
could get the same jobs if they would not drink alcohol.
25

Conclusion
The socio-economic impacts of emigration from Uzbekistan are multifaceted
and require a comprehensive understanding to develop effective policies and
interventions. This course work has examined the patterns, drivers, and
consequences of emigration, highlighting both the challenges and opportunities it
presents. By addressing these issues, Uzbekistan can strive towards harnessing the
potential benefits of emigration while minimizing its adverse effects, ultimately
paving the way for sustainable socio-economic development. policy
recommendations aimed at mitigating the negative socio-economic impacts of
emigration from Uzbekistan. It will propose strategies for addressing brain drain,
fostering human capital development, promoting economic diversification, and
maximizing the positive effects of remittances. Additionally, it will suggest
measures to strengthen social support systems, encourage diaspora engagement,
and facilitate the return and reintegration of emigrants.
26

LIST OF BIBLOGRAPHY
1. A. R. Byasharova, G. Sh. Karabaeva, L. M. Ashurzoda, D. R. Tadzhieva, R.
M. Latypova. Current issues of international migration in Uzbekistan //
Bulletin of the Altai Academy of Economics and Law No. 5, 2023.
2. Ahunov M. , Kakhkharov J., Parpiev Z., Inna Wolfson. Socio-economic
consequences of labor migration in Uzbekistan. 2015.
3. Anannya Chakraborty, Prof. SK Acharya and Chethana.K. The Push Factors
of Migration: An Empirical Study // International Conference on
Agriculture and Allied Sciences: The Productivity, Food Security and
Ecology. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338178046 , 2019.
4. Giorgi Khishtovani., Maya Komakhidze. Reviewing Migration and
Development The role of local authorities in Central Asia // CAREC
Institute. Visiting Fellow Program 2020, Migration in Central Asia,
5. Juraev A. R. Doctoral Thesis. Labor Migration from Uzbekistan: Social and
Economic Impacts on Local Development. Doctoral Programme in Local
Development and Global Dynamics, 2020.
6. K.A.Bondarenko . Labor Migration from Uzbekistan: a family and
community promoted Big Bang // Regional Research of Russia, Vol. 11,
No. 2. – Moscow .: published in Prostranstvennaya Ekonomika, 2020.
7. Natalya M., Morozova A., Ekaterina K., Rudakova A., Elena S.
Lukashenko. Emographic and economic peculiarities of migration from
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to Russia // International Scientific Forum
«National Interest, National Identity and National Security», Published by
European Publisher, 2021 .
8. Rakhimov M., Yokubov F. Uzbekistan external migration: key trends and
directions // Eurasian Research Journal, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2022.
9. William Seitz. International Migration and Household Well-Being
Evidence from Uzbekistan // Policy Research Working Paper 8910, 2019.
10. www.stat.uz
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The history of migration processes in Central Asia

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