The global economic crisis of 2008 and 2009 has intensified the public discourse over the migration of a very important and vulnerable group of the population in Central Asia – women migrant workers – and over public policy choices. The debates often focus on the merits of competing policy approaches and policy actions: should the national governments, NGOs and international donors in Central Asia continue supporting migrant workers by negotiating regional free trade and a free migration zone, and by collaborating on developing the regional labor market in the CIS? Or should Central Asian governments accept a greater responsibility for the well-being of their citizens, especially women, and work to create a better business environment and more jobs locally?

BACKGROUND: The 2008-2009 global financial and economic crisis has had a massive labor-adjusting effect on the labor markets in the CIS in general and on women-clustered segments of the labor market in particular. This impact reversed a decade-long trend in job creation across the region. Since the 1990s, under pressure from globalization, economic adjustment, technological changes and opening of the local markets to international competition, most of the new jobs were created in the service sector, especially retail trade, catering, care economy, finance, banking and information technologies – the jobs which men in the region never even consider. Women greatly benefited from the steady nine-percent-a-year average growth of the service sector though a significant number of these jobs were created in the insecure and unpredictable informal economy.

The service segments of the economy were so underdeveloped in the past that they expanded faster than any other sectors of the national economies in the region in the boom years since 1991. The demand for a new workforce was so great in Russia, Kazakhstan and some other countries that it began absorbing even the untrained labor from the rural areas across the CIS, including women migrant workers from Central Asia, who traditionally were not involved in migration and were often locked in poverty and unpaid housework. This trend became so profound that international organizations began talking about the feminization of migration in the region, as tens and hundreds of thousands of female retail sellers, waitresses, receptionists and personal secretaries have been recruited in foreign countries. However, the jobs were created unevenly – very few in close proximity of the labor surplus areas and localities (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), instead mostly in the two fastest growing economies in the region, Russia and Kazakhstan. Yet the geographic distances and centuries-long Central Asian patriarchal traditions did not stop women from traveling to faraway places.

Due to the specific nature of economic development in the CIS, it is difficult to estimate the exact numbers of women migrant workers, as between 30 and 50 percent of them are working outside the formal economy. The problem is that many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the CIS region have preferred to operate in the informal economy (experts estimate that between 23 and 41 percent of GDP in Russia is generated in the informal economy) and these do not report profits or number of employees. This is due to a difficult business environment in many localities and in order to avoid excessive bureaucratic control, taxes, red tape, or bribe extortions from state officials, to mention but a few factors. A UNIFEM-commissioned research published in 2009 estimates that the proportion of women migrant workers in the total outflow from the Central Asian region is between 18 and 35 percent. In absolute numbers this could constitute 300,000-850,000  people (out of about 2-2.8 million migrant workers from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan).

By and large, women have continued to search for jobs in faraway places, though they remain vulnerable to job-related abuse, fraud, violence, social insecurity and job instability. Women have found ways to address these problems: forming their own networks, communication channels and remittance-sending opportunities, and even beginning to win a greater social space and social respect in extremely conservative and patriarchal communities in rural Central Asia. The governments in these labor-surplus countries (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) have greatly benefited from these migration flows as the out-migration has eased the pressures on the local labor markets and the need to develop efficient job-creation policies.

IMPLICATIONS: The worst economic recession in the region since the Russian ruble collapse in 1998 brought a new economic situation to the region. According to IMF estimates, the overall regional growth declined from an impressive 7.6 percent in 2007 to 4.7 percent in 2008 and to a swooping -5.6 percent in 2009. The GDP growth will probably remain just above a whisper in 2010 and 2011 at the rate of about 0.5-2 percent, and many sectors including services will stop growing and hiring. This will have huge implications for the labor market, especially among women migrant workers.

First, these women will probably form the majority of the World Bank-projected poverty increase of about 15 million people in the region due to job losses or salary cuts. Second, women labor migrants will experience growing job and income insecurity, both in the formal and informal sectors of the economy. There are reports of many companies asking their employees to work longer hours without pay, transferring their employees into temporary or casual positions or threatening to fire workers if they do not accept tough working conditions. Third, in a desperate situation many women may become victims of fraud and human trafficking as they may believe in and accept false promises, having no other options. Fourth, women migrant workers are under increasing pressure from host countries and communities to return home, as according to the World Bank unemployment increased by 30 percent in the CIS, doubled in the Baltic countries and jumped by 60 percent in Turkey. Some politicians in migrant receiving countries tend to claim that the migrant-sending countries prefer a free-ride instead of returning home to work, and these politicians would like to protect their constituencies and labor markets by reducing the labor migration quotas, hardening labor regulation rules and exploring options to send migrants home.

The extent of external shocks, the global credit crunch and the economic slowdown was quite unexpected in the region. The effects on the labor markets will be long-lasting, as evidence from the region and various countries around the world suggests that employment will not return to its pre-crisis level any time soon.

CONCLUSIONS: The governments in the region should consider a series of far-reaching and gender-sensitive actions and policy initiatives in job creation not only at home but also across the region through regional economic cooperation in stimulating economic growth. First, the countries in the region should not close their borders and isolate themselves, but discuss and develop economic coordination of their Economic Stimulus Packages (ESPs) in order to utilize the complementary nature of their economies and regional division of labor, established during the 70 years of economic integration. Second, there is also a need for assistance to labor-surplus countries for job creation, training and re-training the workforce and maintaining at least a basic social safety net, especially for women in need. The resource-rich neighboring and OECD countries, as well as regional and international organizations, should provide assistance, expertise and various forms of cooperation helping these countries in job creation and developing a more business-friendly environment for SME and self-employment opportunities. Third, it is important for the governments in the region to realize that the informal economy provides millions of jobs, especially for women. Thus, there is a need to strengthen the positive impacts of informal economic activities, such as significant job creation and labor force flexibility, while at the same time minimizing the negative side effects, such as dangerous working conditions, work related abuses and fraud. Finally, there is a need for development of a more organized and comprehensive network of grassroots organizations organized by women to provide assistance, meet women’s needs and defend their rights.

AUTHORS’ BIO: Rafis Abazov, PhD, teaches at the Harriman Institute/SIPA at the Columbia University (New York). He is author of Historical Dictionary of Kyrgyzstan (2004), The Culture and Customs of the Central Asian Republics (2007) and the Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of Central Asia (2008). In 2009 he contributed to the UNDP and UNIFEM studies on migration in Central Asia and the CIS.