Labour Migration as an Option: Why Tajik Youth Become Migrants and How that Affects Their Views on Education

Abstract

This research project has been aimed to examine the causes of youth labour migration in Tajikistan. Arguing that youth labour migration differs from the labour migration of adults, this work highlights a number of causes and factors that affect youth decision-making process regarding their migration. The main causes are identified as economic conditions such as unemployment, poverty and low wages and youth unwillingness to serve in the army, while factors such as the presence of migrant networks and the so called ‘herd effect’ strongly contribute to such decisions. Because of the extended migration from Tajikistan the migrant network has been established through the social connections between migrants in destination country and non-migrants in origin state and it facilitate the process of migration. Whereas “herd effect” drives youth for migration since they see others’ examples and expect to achieve similar success. Moreover, this study argues that large scale labour migration shapes mostly negative attitude of youth toward education. Since some of them consider their future migration as an inevitable fact it affects their motivation for study. Also information flow through migrant network about job opportunities, which tends to be mostly unskilled labour, leads to perception of irrelevancy of education among youth. Not least, by the “herd effect”, the would-be migrants observe how large numbers of mostly uneducated and initially unskilled migrants could be successful in earning money, and they follow their examples. However, analysis shows that parents’ expectations regarding their children’s future migration and education are ambiguous and, thus, it depends on where and how parents see children’s future.