Modern economic, political and demographic trends show that the world enters an epoch of growing migratory pressure: one out of every 35 persons worldwide is an international migrant(1).
Due to its demographic and socio-economic features, Central Asia is related to a category of so-called "labor exceeding" regions. It is primarily caused by all traditional views towards having many children and family, caused by nation’s mentality, and also constantly increasing surplus of agricultural population.
Active demographic development of the countries, particularly from Uzbekistan has stipulated the fact that nowadays the population has exceeded 26 million people, 50 percent of which are of labor age, and annually nearly 300,000 young people enter the labor market. Although the rates of an increase in population were steadily reducing during the last decade (in 2004 it reached 1,1%), according to the forecasts of experts in the year 2050 there will be about 40 million people living in the republic.
There are a lot of dilemmas around the migration phenomenon, especially concerning the labor migrants, their rights and security, remittances, contribution to GDP and GNP, etc. This is very sensitive issue for those small countries, who have no enough domestic market to survive and cannot economically properly position themselves among "Big Brothers". Migration is both natural absorber of the socio-economic shocks of the globalizing world and human response to the imperfect markets of globalizing economy.
Economic reasons for migration are stipulated by low standards of living. According to Human Development index, Uzbekistan is 107 among 175 countries of the world(2) .
1. Illegal labor migration.
It has two forms:
a) Legal exit from Central Asian state to another country as a tourist or for studies, and the subsequent illegal employment taken up voluntarily in small "unnoticeable" businesses, in order to eventually "legalize" residence in the given country (work permit, residence permit, citizenship, etc.).
Different sources of statistics indicate the significant scale of illegal migration from CA for the entire period of 1991-2005. The experts’ estimations show that this form of migration has not yet lost its intensive nature in the 21st century.
b) Legal exit to another country through various channels, and forced employment in illegal types of activities, such as prostitution, slavery, narco-trafficking, etc.
c) illegal exit from the country and participation in "mafia" structures activities abroad;
2. Shuttle labor migration for seasonal work.
One of the most common forms of migration from Central Asia, already since the soviet times, is the so called "job-hunting". It is particularly widespread in the country’s agricultural regions, as well as small and medium sized towns, where unemployment is a quite serious problem. In some regions, every third able-bodied man regularly leaves the country for seasonal work abroad, mainly in Russia (around 60 percent of them) and other CIS countries (30 percent). Seasonal work starts in spring and ends well into autumn and is mainly comprised of work on large constructions or in house repair companies. This particular group of workers has general and all-purpose skills, with the exception of a small group of specialists with skills in uncommon construction-repair works. Absence of visa requirements and the soft immigration regime for citizens of CIS countries, as well as comparatively lower costs of living and traveling (family members, as a rule, do not travel), make this form of labor migration attractive for not only single young men without particular skills or specialties, but also for those, who cannot provide their families with sufficient incomes received from agricultural activities or due to being unemployed.
(1) "Migration policy issues No.2 - Facts and figures on international migration”, International Organization for Migration, Geneva, March 2003
(2) Global Human Development Report, 2004, NY, P. 127
