Highly Skilled Migrants from Central Asian States at the Russian Labor Market

The article examines the features of employment in the Russian labor market of highly skilled labor migrants from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The main attention is paid to their economic activities, occupations, wages and labor intensity in comparison with similar characteristics of less skilled Central Asian labor migrants and highly skilled migrants from other post-Soviet states. It is concluded that highly skilled migrants from Central Asia, being more successful than their less skilled compatriots, lose in competition for the best jobs to highly skilled migrants from other countries. Special attention is paid to the behavior of highly skilled Central Asian migrants during the pandemic in 2020, when they demonstrated a high potential for adaptation to the extraordinary transformation of the labor market. Regarding the situation as temporary during the first wave of the pandemic (spring 2020), confident in their ability to find a job in Russia and not wanting to leave it, highly qualified Central Asian migrants did not err in their expectations, strengthening their position in the Russian labor market. During the second wave of the pandemic (autumn 2020), their optimism, based on assessing the possibilities of finding a decent job in Russia, satisfaction with conditions and wages, increased even more. The empirical base of the study was the results of sociological surveys of labor migrants from the CIS countries, Ukraine and Georgia in 2017, as well as during the first and second waves of the pandemic (2020).

EXPERT COMMUNITY’S OPINION ON SOME PROBLEMS OF NATIONAL POLICY IN CHUVASHIA

The article presents the views of 30 experts on a number of national policy problems in the Chuvash Republic. According to experts, friendly, conflict-free interethnic and interconfessional relations prevail in Chuvashia, rare cases of negative interethnic contacts are characteristic of everyday situations, most often related to the use of native languages. The possibility of interethnic conflicts is considered as unlikely. They may be associated with potentially ill-conceived actions in the sphere of linguistic and other ethno-cultural interests of representatives of individual peoples. According to experts, preservation and improvement of good-neighborly relations between representatives of certain ethnic groups are greatly influenced by the verified national policy and successful economic development of the republic. Some experts support the opinion which prevails among the republic population on the negative impact of labor migrants on the labor market opportunities for the old-age population, although statistics data do not confirm such attitudes. From experts’ viewpoint, successful implementation of national policy in the republic could be facilitated by organization of a special state management structure (ministry, committee), active involvement of enthusiasts in national cultural associations in various management issues, regular ethnological monitoring, dissemination of positive practices in the field of interethnic relations, etc. In general, experts believe that there is no noticeable influence of the ethnic factor on real politics in Chuvashia.

Dynamics of labor migration in the Republic of Bashkortostan

The article considers some indicators of the widespread social phenomenon in Russia - labor migration, which, according to the data for 2019, involves about 2.9 million Russians, or 4% of the employed population. These are internal labor migrants who temporarily work outside their regions. This type of labor migration of Russians has common features with temporary employment in the United States, Canada, and Australia (long distance commuting - LDC), fly-in/fly-out - FIFO). The empirical basis of the article consists of the statistical data (results of the labor force survey by the Federal State Statistics Service for 2011-2019) and the results of sociological research conducted in the region with a high level of shift employment - the Republic of Bashkortostan - in 2015-2019. The statistical data prove regional differences in the Russian shift employment: the majority (72%) of internal labor migrants live in a third of the regions with high and medium levels of temporary labor migration; in some regions, the level of temporary labor migration decreases. The sociological data show different involvement in shift employment depending on place of residence, gender and age, marital status and level of education. The same social-territorial and social-demographic features are evident at the national level. At the federal level, internal labor migration, as a tool for social-economic development, helps to solve the problem of labor shortage in certain areas and sectors of economy; therefore, such labor migration is supported by legal acts. At the regional level, it decreases the labor and demographic potential of the regions that provide labor migrants. To preserve the economic and demographic potential and to strengthen the competitiveness of such regions, we need to develop regional labor markets and labor mobility within regions.

MIGRATION MOBILITY OF THE CARPATHIAN REGION YOUTH: PROPOSITION OF IMPROVEMENT OF INFORMATION -ANALYTIC SUPPORT OF REGIONAL MIGRATION POLICY

The development of the new information-driven society along with the penetration of the globalization processes in all social and economic activities became the entities of the liberalization of the migration relations, which simplify in general the youth moving and increase its mobility. Based on statistics and administrative data analysis about youth migration from Carpathian Region it was determined that quick spreading of the positive migration aspirations among the youthful population gets new looms and can lead to the migration deprivation ramp-ups in the Carpathian Region in the future. Mainstreaming of the external migration climate and escalation of the problem are also heavily mandated by the entity of the passive state and regional migration policy, which manifests through immature system of the real complex migration registration, unfinished state of system of the institutional-organizational and institutional-legal regulation of the migration processes at the regional and local levels, low quality and low organizational and technical options of the migration services’ infrastructure elements, insufficient use of the resources of the migration exchange programs in the field of education, science, innovation and research activities, tourism, investment and business projects, the lack of regional programs of the stimulation of the educational and labor migrants’ re-emigration. In the attempt to eliminate gaps in migration policy and minimize the risks and threats of the growth of migration activity of the Carpathian Region youth, the instruments and methods of external migration monitoring system’s improvement, the development of the regional databases of migration structural-dynamic characteristics, the development of migration policy preventive instruments aimed to regulation of the regional labor markets, and the corresponding implementation of the migration services market infrastructure’s development, stimulation of the educational and labor migrants’ re-emigration, improvement of the migration policy institutional support in the Carpathian Region were proposed.

Recovery of Women Well-Being in Migration: Example of Ukraine

The present study is focused on women well-being in migration. The aim was to investigate well-being of Ukrainian women migrants and to present the results of psychological work aimed at correcting the shortcomings of the emotional, social and behavioral aspects of the personality of women migrants with the help of special means of psychological influence. At the first stage an empirical study was conducted in Northern Italy during 2018-2019. The empirical sample consisted of 200 Ukrainian women - labor migrants aged 31 to 79 years who worked as caregivers. The Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF) was applied. The study of psychological well-being in the group of women migrant workers revealed mostly an average level (81.5%). At the same time, the study showed a low level of both emotional and social well-being (43.5% and 72%, respectively). At the second stage of the study psycho-correctional work was carried out with the labor migrant women and women displaced from Eastern Ukraine, where hostilities were taking place. 80 women were involved in the group psycho correction in Klaipeda city, Lithuania (June 2018). 120 women took part in individual counseling (on-line mode). Classes were held at the Kostyuk Institute of Psychology (Kyiv, Ukraine), once a week for 3 hours (2019-2020). The psycho-correctional work included the method of self-report, actualization of emotional states, the method of debriefing, as well as the art therapy. The use of psycho-correctional work showed positive effect on the emotional sphere of women, in particular, changes were noted in the balance of negative and positive emotions. Participants of the program improved their relationships with close people, as well as new goals and strategies to achieve them appeared.

SĂNĂTATEA FIZICĂ ȘI PSIHO-SOCIALĂ A COPIILOR MARCAȚI DE MIGRAȚIA PARENTALĂ DE MUNCĂ

The Republic of Moldova is today one of the countries which is considerably affected by migration. Almost 25% of the economically active population of the country is involved in temporary labor migration. According to the data offered by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Protection of the Republic of Moldova, at the beginning of 2020, the total number of children affected by parental labor migration was 29 186. In order to define the quality of life (QL) of migrants’children, there were researched different aspects of their lives, such as physical functioning (FF), emotional functioning (EF), social functioning (SF) and school functioning (SF). The given research involved 150 children from Moldova. They were of different age groups (5-7, 8-12, 13-18), from whom 75 children were of the labor migrants and their parents/tutors who remain in the country and 75 children of the labor migrants without labor migration experience. As the instrument for given research there was used the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™4.0) questionnaire. In the course of the research there was emphasized the quality of life of children of the highest level with the score from 100 to 91, the middle level from 90 to 81, the low level from 80 to 71 and the lowest level less than 70 points. According to the results of the investigation it was established that the migrants’ children of various age groups, from all the examined aspects had a very low level of QL (less than 70 points). The presented results perform a very convincing fact that labor migrants’ children in comparison to their peers from the families without labor migration experience had a considerably low index on all the scales and on integral characteristics of quality of life.

Viapolitics

Vehicles, their infrastructures, and the environments they traverse are fundamental to the movement of migrants and states' attempts to govern them. This volume's contributors use the concept of viapolitics to name and foreground this contested entanglement and examine the politics of migration and bordering across a range of sites. They show how these elements constitute a key site of knowledge and struggle in migratory processes and offer a privileged vantage point from which to interrogate practices of mobility and systems of control in their deeper histories and wider geographic connections. This transdisciplinary group of scholars explores a set of empirically rich and diverse cases: from the Spanish and European authorities' attempts to control migrants' entire trajectories to infrastructures of escort of Indonesian labor migrants; from deportation train cars in the 1920s United States to contemporary stowaways at sea; from illegalized migrants walking across treacherous Alpine mountain passes to aerial geographies of deportation. Throughout, Viapolitics interrogates anew the phenomenon called “migration,” questioning how different forms of contentious mobility are experienced, policed, and contested. Contributors. Ethan Blue, Maribel Casas-Cortes, Julie Y. Chu, Sebastian Cobarrubias, Glenda Garelli, Charles Heller, Sabine Hess, Bernd Kasparek, Clara Lecadet, Johan Lindquist, Renisa Mawani, Lorenzo Pezzani, Ranabir Samaddar, Amaha Senu, Martina Tazzioli, William Walters

Labor Migration and Climate Change Adaptation

Social scientific evidence suggests that labor migration can increase resilience to climate change. For that reason, some have recently advocated using labor migration policy as a tool for climate adaptation. This paper engages with the normative question of whether, and under what conditions, states may permissibly use labor migration policy as a tool for climate adaptation. I argue that states may use labor migration policy as a tool for climate adaptation and may even have a duty to do so, subject to two moral constraints. First, states must also provide acceptable alternative options for adaptation so that the vulnerable are not forced to sacrifice their morally important interests in being able to remain where they are. Second, states may not impose restrictive terms on labor migrants to make accepting greater numbers less costly for themselves because doing so unfairly shifts the costs of adaptation onto the most vulnerable.

Migration and Soft Power

This article explores how Kyrgyz labor migrants in Russia view their host country’s government and its influence in Kyrgyzstan, including through the Eurasian Economic Union. Results suggest that migrants have nuanced, pragmatic pro-Russian views. They understand Kyrgyzstan’s dependency on Russia and admire the efficiency of Russia’s government. Yet, they also disapprove of its high levels of corruption and of its disregard for individual rights. Our work contributes to the literature on the diffusion of norms through migration; it also sheds light on Russia’s soft power in Central Asia at a time when rivalry with China is growing in the region.