Migration patterns in a remittances dependent economy: Evidence from Tajikistan during the global financial crisis

Abstract

Before the global financial crisis, Tajikistan was a major labour exporting and the world’s most remittances-dependent country. Remittances had contributed to a remarkable reduction in poverty. This paper exploits a new panel data set spanning the years 2007 to 2009 in order to investigate the effect of the financial crisis on migration and remittances patterns. Expectedly, the economic recession in the main destination country Russia affected Tajikistan through declining remittances. Owing to low diversification in pre-crisis migration patterns, the dependency on sending migrants to Russia and the migration stock there grew. In combination with increased migration risk this suggests that migrants bear part of the cost of the crisis.