Labour migration within Central Asia is primarily a survival strategy for countless households in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Recent trends seem to suggest that the stagnating macroeconomic situation, high unemployment, low wages, scarce employment opportunities, not to mention the high fertility rate, are drivers of migration in the region.

Recent changes in labour legislation of the Russian Federation, which has introduced re-entry bans to migrants in breach of Russian administrative regulations, had a profound impact on labour migrants from Central Asia. In particularly it affected Tajikistan, economy of which is greatly dependent on labour migration, with a large proportion of GDP drawn from Tajik labour migrants’ remittances from the Russian Federation.

External labour migration has been a livelihood strategy for many Tajiks for more than 15 years and has a major impact on all aspects of the life of the country’s population: economic, social, political and demographic. Almost 30 - 40% of the economically active part of the population seeks foreign employment, thereby reducing unemployment substantially.