Current trends in Ukrainian migration and self-organization of migrant communities

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Current trends in Ukrainian migration and self-organization of migrant communities

Journal Title: Регіональна Економіка - Year 2017, Vol 86, Issue 4

Abstract

The military conflict in Eastern Ukraine and occupation of Crimea led to significant changes in dynamics and vectors of migration flows, brought about new trends in migration processes. They primarily concern the recently increased internal migration. Another trend refers to Ukrainian external labour migration, the intensity of which can be considered as a reflection of the economic position of the state. The main peculiarity of the current migration situation in Ukraine is a combination of the two mentioned tendencies. As a result, an intense pressure is put on regional labour markets and, especially, on the social sphere of regions accepting internally displaced persons. This accelerates the existing international migration processes, forms migration orientations (aspirations) among local people and does not contribute to re-emigration. Main features and trends in current Ukrainian migration in terms of self-organization of migrant communities are defined in two focuses – external labour migration and forced internal displacement. 1. Recent events led to a significant transformation of external migration vectors. By 2014, the international migration processes in the Western region of Ukraine were much more intensive than in the East. Furthermore, the Western region tended to both the European and Russian vectors of migration, but the Eastern region – mostly to the Russian one. As a result of a significant deterioration of economic conditions and the war in the Donbas, the trend has distinctly changed – the number of Ukrainian migrants in Russian Federation substantially declined, although still making up more than 1 million people. 2. In previous years the topical issues were concerning the labour migrants’ return, their reintegration and self-organization. There were certain organizations of labour migrants-returnees which were building up strong cultural and socio-economic ties in the homeland. However, since the beginning of military aggression of Russia, the tendency to return has vanished completely. There is only a permanent trend for emigration under any conditions. 3. Formation of internal centres of self-organization of the displaced persons’ communities is currently taking place. In the west of the country, there are much less displaced people, although at the beginning of hostilities in the Donbas the Western region was actually the focus for IDP. The region was considered to be not as much the place for permanent settlement, as to be a sort of a transition point to the West. 4. The core trend in the labour market is the labour force cheapening, which causes serious anxiety and tense relations with the local population. It mostly refers to Kyiv, Odesa and Vinnytsya regions. The conflicts between internally displaced persons and local people force an application of new approaches and methods of analysis of integration processes in the recipient regions or in any countries. 5. In general, the processes of self-organization of migrant communities can occur at different levels: at the level of small organizations (micro-communities); territorial communities; at the macro-level of the state. The main reasons for differences in the processes of self-organization of migrant communities are: the character of migration (the «voluntary» migration with the purpose of earnings or the forced one to preserve life and health); orientation on the paternalism among most of the IDP, whereas the external labour migrants are used to rely on their own strength or help from relatives or friends; the host society (predetermines the necessity or inexpediency of formation of such communities, presence or absence of the corresponding legislative norms). Further practical decisions for the solution of the mentioned problems lie in the search for optimal mechanisms of self-organization of migrant communities in terms of their employment and decent living standards provision.

Authors and Affiliations

Roman T. Teslyuk, Hryhoriy P. Seleshchuk

Keywords

EP ID EP429746
DOI -
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