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Regular version of the site

31%

of women working in food service companies, retail stores or at markets have either a higher education or an unfinished higher education.

Taking part in the study were natives of Central Asia and Russians aged 18 to 40 living in three major cities: Moscow, Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg.

The highest level of education was found among Kyrgyz women (46% of them have studied at universities). This is slightly higher than the rate among local workers (39%). The lowest level of education was found among Uzbek women at 14%.

These data are presented in an article by Professor Victor Agadjanian of Arizona State University and Natalya Zotova, researcher at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology (Russian Academy of Sciences), which appeared in Demographic Review, a journal published by the Higher School of Economics.

See also:

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Migrants Give More Births Than Locals

Women who have moved to another part of the country tend to have higher fertility than those who stay in the same community all their lives. Relocation often improves a woman's life circumstances and broadens her choice of marriage partner, thus supporting her reproductive intentions, according to Svetlana Biryukova, Senior Research Fellow of the HSE Center for Studies of Income and Living Standards, and Alla Tyndik, Leading Research Fellow at the RANEPA.

Employers Not Interested in Migrant Workers' Experience and Education

In Russia, the demand for migrant workers is highest in economically developed and resource-extracting regions, in areas with low population density, and in construction and industrial companies. Employers prefer to hire low-skilled migrants with no education beyond secondary school and limited work experience of less than a year, since these workers are much cheaper than locals. These are some of the findings from a study by Elena Vakulenko, Assiant Professor at the Department of Applied Economics, HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences, and HSE student Roman Leukhin.

Migrant Flow from Central Asia to Russia Will Increase

In the near future, the number of migrants from Central Asia coming to work in Russia will increase – particularly from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, countries where remittances from their citizens working in Russia stand at almost half of their respective GDPs, according to a joint study by the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the HSE Laboratory for Comparative Social Research (LCSR), and the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS).

Migration Expert Stresses Importance of Diversity Ahead of Panel on European Refugee Crisis

On October 22, the HSE Public Policy Department and the Course on Comparative Migration Policy will hold a panel discussion on the European refugee crisis. Dr. Mahama Tawat, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and a specialist in comparative migration policy, will serve as one of the panel members. Dr. Tawat recently spoke with the HSE news service about his research interests, what attracted him to HSE and his views on tolerance and diversity.

Migrants’ Children Forget their Homeland and Native Language

Children of labour migrants from Central Asia don’t want to preserve their ethnic  self-definition, i.e. to speak their native language and follow their cultural traditions. They try to distance themselves from people of their ethnic identity and become fully locals. Both Russian schools and parents further this process, concluded Raisa Akifyeva, senior lecturer at the St. Petersburg School of Social Sciences and Humanities Department of Sociology, as a result of her research.

16.2%

of students who attend schools in the inner Moscow suburbs are children whose native language is not Russian.

Myths Keeping Muscovites and Migrants from Finding Common Ground

Relations between Muscovites and migrant workers from the CIS are plagued by myths circulating in the mass consciousness. In her research,  Yulia Florinskaya , a Senior Researcher with HSE’s Institute of Demography, refutes prevalent statements that migrants not only take jobs from Muscovites, but also seriously increase the burden on healthcare and intentionally maintain illegal status.

No Demand for Educated Migrants

Russia's labour market has a growing demand for unskilled migrant workers from other CIS countries. Migrants who have worked in managerial or professional positions in their home countries almost always see their status decline once they move to Russia. In contrast, less skilled workers easily find jobs of similar status in Russia, according to Elena Varshavskaya, Professor of the HSE's Department of Human Resources Management, and Mikhail Denisenko, Deputy Director of the HSE's Institute of Demography.

13%

of migrants coming to Moscow from Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have a higher education.