MIGRATION FROM THE CENTRAL ASIAN REPUBLICS OF KAZAKHSTAN, KYRGYZSTAN, TAJIKISTAN, TURKMENISTAN, AND UZBEKISTAN TO TURKEY (ANTALYA-İSTANBUL-İZMİR) AFTER THE 2008 WORLD FINANCIAL CRISIS

Date

2023-8

Author

Aslanov, Rauf

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

841
views

358
downloads

Cite This

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Central Asia experienced a massive flow of permanent emigration of ethnic and religious minorities. The permanent emigration of ethnic and religious minorities continued to be the primary form of migration until the early 2000s when labor migration became the dominant form in the region. The main destination country for labor migrants was Russia. Russia, with the economic boom in the oil sector in the early 2000s, was in need of laborers. In order to sustain enough laborers for its economic growth, Russia liberalized its migration policies and laws in 2006. With the liberalization of migration policies, the Russian labor market became more accessible for Central Asian labor migrants. However, everything changed with the 2008 financial crisis. For the first time since the early 2000s, Russian citizens had to compete for the same vacancies with the migrants because of the scarcity of employment opportunities. The rivalry for employment opportunities, and the change of the profile in the case of Central Asian labor migrants (Muslim, less educated, and less command of the Russian language), began to create xenophobia for Muslim Central Asian migrants. However, Russia remained the sole destination country for potential labor migrants in Central Asian republics until 2014. However, after the annexation of Crimea, Russia faced heavy economic sanctions from the West. These sanctions created an atmosphere similar to the 2008 financial crisis. However, in 2014, citizens and governments of three Central Asian countries, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, were already heavily dependent on remittances sent by the labor migrants in Russia. For some Turkmen citizens, on the other hand, remittances of the labor migrants sent from abroad were the only reliable source of income. Hence, beginning in 2014, potential migrants from the Central Asian republics and some of their governments began actively looking for an alternative country to replace the Russian labor market. Turkey was one of the most, if not the most, suitable alternatives. This thesis analyzes the migration from the five Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to the three cities of Turkey, namely Antalya, İstanbul, and İzmir, after the 2008 world financial crisis.

Subject Keywords

Central Asia, Labor Migration, Remittance, Low-income Immigration, High-income Immigration

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/104814

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis