Mass Migration Shakes Demographics

The mass emigration of Tajikistan’s labour force is starting to break up the traditional family and upset the demographic balance, say NBCentralAsia analysts.



On August 3, the head of the Tajik expatriate community in Russia, Karomatullo Sharipov, told the Moskva Mnogonatsionalnaya – or Multi-Ethnic Moscow - radio station that some 2.5 million people, accounting for 35 per cent of Tajikistan’s seven million people, are currently working in Russia.



Of that number, he said, 10 per cent were now living permanently in Russia and the rest were seasonal migrants.



Official sources say 600,000 people head off to Russia in search of work every year.



Analysts polled by NBCentralAsia are concerned that this mass exodus is breaking up the country’s traditional family values and impeding economic development.



Political analyst Parviz Mullojanov says the effects of the 1992-97 Tajik civil war and labour migration on a massive scale have “seriously undermined” the nation by taking away its younger and healthier members. It would take “at least three generations” to restore the balance, he said, adding that “much of the damage cannot be repaired… it is impossible to measure, and cannot be mitigated by economic measures”.



Analyst Hojimurad Umarov believes the unrelenting exodus is beginning to break up the traditional family as an institution, in a country that has always had a strong sense of community. Many male heads of household are away in Russia making a living rather than being around to invest in their children’s upbringing.



Many Tajik families rely solely on the money sent home from a relative in Russia for survival, and NBCentralAsia expert Firuz Saidov says the only solution is to encourage migrants to invest in their own country.



“The main task is to encourage migrant workers to bring their earnings back to Tajikistan and [use it to] create new jobs. In other words, their capital should go to work here,” said Saidov.



However, Saifullo Safarov, a migration expert at the Centre for Strategic Studies, says mass labour migration is not really a problem given that more people are being born in Tajikistan than are dying.



“The outflow of labour is a natural process,” he said. “Because Tajikistan is experiencing a population boom, it is not a dangerous tendency at all – on the contrary, it is actually beneficial from an economic point of view.”



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)