January 16, 2007—In 2002, census-takers in Russia were surprised to find a large number of ghost towns in the country’s far northern and eastern regions.
That same year, they learned Moscow had grown by 1.5 million people to 10.4 million in the decade following the fall of communism.
As the census findings suggest, people in Russia were on the move, looking for better opportunities and living conditions in other cities—even other countries.
And the same thing was happening throughout Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union, where migration of workers is just as much of a phenomenon today as it was in 2002.
In fact, many of the world’s largest migration flows emanate from and flow to the region, according to the new World Bank report, Migration and Remittances: Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union.
Russia is home to the second largest number of migrants in the world after the United States, with an estimated 3 million to 3.5 million undocumented immigrants. And many economies are heavily dependent on remittances—the money migrant workers send home to their families from abroad. According to official figures, remittances constitute over 20 percent of GDP in Moldova and Bosnia, and over 10 percent in Albania, Armenia, and Tajikistan. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the actual remittances flows may be much larger than these official numbers, according to the report.
“Migration—in and out of the region—is here to stay,” says Bank economist Bryce Quillin, who co-edited the report with Ali Mansoor.
Migration will also likely increase in the years to come, as Russia and other countries that were once part of the Soviet Union suffer worker shortages as populations age and their own skilled young people seek work in Eastern Europe, Western Europe and North America, he says.
While some of the demand for workers may be met by other countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, eventually workers will have to be sourced from abroad, “probably from Africa or Asia,” says Quillin, whose research included analyzing surveys, census data and other statistical and quantitative information, as well as conducting surveys of migrants in six countries.
Workers from Tajikistan, Kyrgyz Republic, Armenia, Georgia, and China already are flowing in to take jobs in Russia and Kazakhstan, including heavily depopulated areas of Russia and countries that made up the former Soviet Union.
“Nobody can put numbers on the flows of Chinese into Russia because just about all of it is undocumented,” though much of it is probably temporary, or “circular,” migration, says Quillin.
Encouraging Circular Migration
The study finds that most migration is from Commonwealth of Independent States countries into Russia, and from central and Eastern Europe to Western Europe.
Older workers with families who migrate to wealthy countries in Europe are more likely to want to stay there, but younger, educated, and unmarried workers are more inclined to return home after working abroad, says Quillin.
Much of the migration is illegal—a situation that hurts countries and the workers themselves, who may be mistreated and not have access to medical and other services. “Sending” countries experience “brain drain” as they lose skilled workers, and “receiving” countries lose out on tax revenue or suffer social costs or lower wages for low-skilled or legal migrants, notes Willem van Eeghen, lead economist of the Bank’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia region.
“Migrants provide a lot of benefits to countries, but also quite a few costs, and if you look at the way migration is being managed, you’ll realize that there are definitely possibilities to improve it.”
The study says bilateral labor agreements between nations may not always be effective and includes preliminary recommendations for better managing the flow of migrant labor, so workers can increase their incomes and savings and stay connected to their families, while the countries they’re working in fill labor shortages, and their home countries increase GDP through remittances, as well as benefit from the skills migrants acquire abroad when they return home.
“That’s why we suggest that if policies can be put in place to encourage circular migration, it can be a triple win—for the migrants themselves, for the sending countries, and for the receiving countries,” adds Quillin.
Van Eeghen is heading up an effort to develop a pilot program over the next year that will test whether agreements among nations can encourage circular migration through certain incentives, such as making social security benefits payable in migrants’ home countries, or making it easier for migrants to start businesses when they return home.
“The point is to encourage migrants to be legal. We think that faced with a choice to be either legal or illegal most workers and employers would prefer to be legal. But given the constraints they face today, they often don’t have any other choice but to be become illegal,” he says.
Better managing the flow of workers among countries holds great potential for reducing poverty in the region and elsewhere in the world, he adds.
“There are studies that show that the impact of migration can actually be much bigger than all the aid that is provided, so if we’re concerned about development and poverty reduction, we should be very much concerned about migration.”
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