Central Asian Migrants a Problem for Their Homelands Now and When They Return

Executive Summary:

• Central Asian governments have traditionally viewed outmigration as a way to reduce unemployment and provide additional cash flow for the population and government through payments sent home, but the problems this outmigration has led to in Central Asia are gaining more attention.
• These problems have become more obvious in recent years, as the social structure in Central Asia and the ways in which people are socialized in these countries has been changing.
• Without systematic reforms in the drivers of outmigration, including the economy, the loss of young men to migrant labor, and the separate problems created by their eventual return, will threaten the region’s stability.

The problems Central Asian migrant workers pose for Russia have long caused many in Russia to want them to leave, but the challenges these same people represent for their own countries have not drawn the same attention. Many assume that payments sent home by migrant workers and the positive effects of emigration on Central Asian overpopulation and unemployment make migrant work overwhelmingly positive for Central Asians and their governments (see EDM, May 15, 2024). Even though migrant labor has real mutual benefits for both Russia and Central Asian governments, outmigration also causes serious problems in Central Asia. The loss of large numbers of young men in Central Asia removes fathers and socializers of the younger generation (see EDM, May 9, 2024. As a significant share of these young men return home, in large part due to rising xenophobia in Russia, they will be faced with a changed social landscape and lower incomes (Window on Eurasia, April 3, 2024; see EDM, May 15, 2024). What began as a pressure valve for overpopulation and unemployment in Central Asia may trigger social unrest as migrants return home.

Central Asia has remained almost the only region of the world where population growth continues to exceed replacement levels (Window on Eurasia, December 22, 2024, February 18). Countries in the region have viewed outmigration as a solution and have been more or less pleased that the Russian Federation has been willing to take so many of them in (see EDM, February 28, 2017). Outmigration not only reduces unemployment and social pressures in Central Asia but also provides additional cash flow for the population and government through payments sent home by those working abroad (see EDM, February 28, 2017; RITM Evrazii, May 13). Because Central Asia reaps these benefits, relatively little attention has been given to the problems created by outmigration, and even less to how those problems will be exacerbated if and when Central Asians working in the Russian Federation return home.

Central Asian governments are paying more attention to the negative consequences of outmigration as workers return home in large numbers. Researchers in Central Asia are focusing their attention on how outmigration has “changed the social and economic structure of the region” through the removal of young men aged 18 to 35 who would otherwise help raise children (Bugin Info, May 14). These men left both because unemployment in their home countries was so high and because pay in the Russian Federation was much higher (Bugin Info, May 14). The exodus of young men from Central Asia has become so severe that locals speak of “cities without men” and the resulting societal changes (Bugin Info, May 16).

The scale of outmigration is massive. In 2023, the last year for which there is comparable data for all five countries in the region, there were approximately 10 million Central Asian laborers working abroad. In Tajikistan, this was a quarter of the working population; in Kyrgyzstan, about 20 percent; and in Uzbekistan, 10 percent. In 2022, migrant workers sent home $14 billion in transfer payments, which constituted 30 percent of Tajikistan’s gross domestic product, 25 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s, and 10 percent of Uzbekistan’s (Bugin Info, May 14). For a time, the influx of money and the role of jobs abroad in driving down unemployment at home obscured the problems of massive outmigration. As more Central Asian migrants return home rather than moving abroad and transfer payments are dropping, however, the social problems caused by outmigration are becoming ever more obvious. 

In rural districts of Central Asia, “the share of men aged 18 to 35 has fallen 20 to 30 percent over the last 15 years,” and in some of parts of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan “up to 80 percent of the adult male population is absent for a large part of the year,” according to data compiled by the information portal Bugin Info (Bugin Info, May 16). That means that in Tajikistan, an unprecedented 40 percent of the households are now headed by women. The situation in the other four countries is somewhat less extreme, but an increase in female-headed households is now characteristic of the region as a whole. Regional experts argue that “the lengthy absence of men is destroying family structures,” as evidenced by the collapse of traditional gender roles within families and dramatic increases in divorce (Bugin Info, May 16). When migrant workers return home, many find it hard to cope with the new dynamics, resulting in an increase in familial conflict and domestic violence (Bugin Info, May 16).

Fewer young men in rural regions reduces the “potential for social change,” as they typically drive protests and reform (Bugin Info, May 16). Outmigration of large swaths of young men thereby contributes to political stagnation and, upon their return, sets the stage for conflict between those who want patriarchal social structures to prevail and those who want women to continue in leadership roles adopted during the absence of their families’ patriarch. Without “systematic reforms in the economy, education, and social policies” of Central Asia, the loss of young men to migrant labor and separate problems created by their return will “threaten the stability of the region” (Bugin Info, May 16). Addressing the challenges that cause outmigration would be difficult for any government, particularly so for the hard-pressed and resource-short governments of Central Asia. Migrant workers returning home will collapse payments sent to Central Asia from abroad and increase domestic unemployment rates, meaning that governments are unlikely to have the capital to make necessary reforms in a timely fashion. If that proves to be the case, then the problem of “cities without men,” which for many outsiders may appear to be a sociological curiosity, is likely to take center stage in the near future and become the source of challenges far greater than other developments which regularly attract more attention.