THE CENTRALThe ASIA FCentralELLOWSHIP PAPERS N o.Asia 1, October Fellowship 2013 Papers No. 8, March 2015 Emigration of “Crème de la crème” in Uzbekistan. A Gender Perspective Marina Kayumova Marina Kayumova (Uzbekistan) has considerable international work experience, during which she was exposed to a variety of projects within public and private sectors. Her previous assignments include work in GSM Association, European Parliament and Patent Office. She has also worked as a strategy consultant for SMEs. Marina holds MPhil degree in Innovation, Strategy and Organization from the University of Cambridge and BA from the University of Westminster. She also received Masters in International Relations from the European Institute, where she explored EU-Russia and Central Asia relations in the domain of energy cooperation. CENTRAL ASIA FELLOWSHIP PAPERS No. 8, March 2015 International migration displays two interesting tendencies: the increasing migration of the highly skilled workforce and the growing feminization of migration flows (Dumont et al., 2007). This type of human capital flight mostly affects developing and low-income countries (Kuznetsov and Sabel, 2006; Docquier and Rapoport, 2012). It is also an important challenge faced by Central Asian states. The World Bank estimates that the total number of emigrants from Uzbekistan since 1991 is 2 million people (World Bank, 2011). However, exact statistics are not available, and there is speculation that the real number of migrants is closer to 6 million. Data for the level of education of emigrants is similarly unreliable. The World Bank has estimated that one in three Uzbeks living abroad has a tertiary education degree. This would mean that around 1 million Uzbeks with higher education live outside the country (World Bank, 2014). That said, Docquier and Rapoport (2012) report that between 1990 and 2000 the highly skilled emigration rate more than doubled in eight post-Soviet countries, with Uzbekistan displaying one of the highest rates (59.5%), of highly skilled emigrants of the total emigration stock (Docquier and Marfouk, 2006). The gender aspect of highly skilled emigration has only recently started to receive attention (Naghsh Nejad and Young, 2014). Since the 1990s, experts have witnessed a steady increase of women emigrating. The literature explains this in terms of the transformation of labor, changing gender roles, including increased gender equality (Beneria et al., 2013). That said, the study of highly skilled female migration is complicated because of the lack of reliable statistics and harmonized gender- disaggregated data on emigrants’ educational background (Dumont et al., 2007; Beneria et al., 2013; Docquier and Marfouk, 2006). This paper examines the consequences of the emigration of the “crème de la crème” from Uzbekistan. I use the “brain drain/brain gain” debate as my analytical framework. The first section of this paper describes the methodology of my study. The second section explains why it is important to examine highly skilled female emigration in Uzbekistan. Drawing on the empirical data, I collected through a series of in-depth interviews, I examine both negative and positive consequences of the emigration of highly skilled professionals. The final section concludes with recommendations on how to turn “brain drain” into “brain gain”. Methodology This study is based on 18 in-depth interviews with emigrants from Uzbekistan holding PhD degrees in natural (physics, chemistry, biology), social (economics, education, law, political science) and applied sciences (medicine, engineering, computer science). 1 The pool of respondents have the following characteristics: (1) They have resided outside of Uzbekistan for 4 to 19 years. (2) The majority of them left Uzbekistan, on their own, without their family members. (3) All of them still have family members in Uzbekistan. (4) Most of the respondents got their undergraduate education in Uzbekistan and their Master and PhD degrees abroad. (5) Most of the respondents’ current occupation is directly relevant to the areas of expertise obtained in the course of their studies. The respondents were selected through the use of stratified snowball sampling and through the on-line network of Uzbek professionals abroad. First contacts were made through personal networks within immigrant communities in the UK, Belgium, Germany, France, Switzerland, the United States, Canada, and Japan. 1 Because of the lack of reliable and comprehensive statistics on the share of female and male emigrants with tertiary degrees, the present study is based on in-depth interviews. 2 CENTRAL ASIA FELLOWSHIP PAPERS No. 8, March 2015 To control for gender differences, the sample was composed of an equal number of female and male respondents. The interviews lasted on average for about one hour. Although interviews followed a semi-structured guide with predetermined themes that uncovered the behavior and intentions of the emigrants, we also allowed for a free-flowing discussion. In order to minimize gender biases, we initially did not tell the respondents that we focused on the question of highly skilled female migration in Uzbekistan. Respondents were informed only at the very end of the interview. In the interviews we asked female respondents to reflect on their gender roles. Our male respondents were also asked to reflect on their gender roles. In addition, we asked whether if they had been a woman their situation and motivations would have been different. This study is to be seen as a probe that offers some promising avenues for more in-depth research. Feminization of highly skilled migration The increasing number of women emigrating, including highly skilled women, has generated a growing interest by scholars and policymakers in the gender dimension of migration flows. According to the United Nations, between 1960 and 2005, the share of women in international migration increased from 46.8% to 49.6% and outnumbered the number of male emigrants from developing countries (Docquier et al., 2010). This trend is particularly noticeable for highly skilled women from developing countries (Naghsh Nejad and Young, 2014; Spadavecchia, 2013; Bang and Mitra, 2011; Ozden and Neagu, 2008; Docquier et al., 2010). Dumont et al. (2007) found that the average emigration rate of tertiary-educated women from non-OECD countries exceeded that of men by 4.5%, whereas there was no gender gap in emigration rates of men and women with primary and secondary education (Beneria et al., 2013). Those world-wide tendencies also hold true for the post-Soviet space. The proportion of women emigrants from the former Soviet Union increased dramatically over the past 25 years (Morrison et al., 2008). Docquier et al. (2010) found that in 2000 the share of skilled female emigrants from Central Asia stood at 50.2% as opposed to 46.5% for their male counterparts. In Central Asia, the increase of the rate of skilled women emigrating as compared to the number of skilled men emigrating or the total number of women emigrating is particularly high (Docquier et al., 2007). Figure 1 Annual average growth rate of total/skilled stock of emigrants. Data by region (1990-2000) Adapted from Docquier et al. (2007, p.15) 3 CENTRAL ASIA FELLOWSHIP PAPERS No. 8, March 2015 Based on the data of Brücker, Capuano, and Marfouk I constructed a graph depicting the emigration of highly skilled labour as a percentage of total emigrants of Uzbekistan.2 Figure 2 Emigration of highly-skilled labor as a percentage of total emigration stock for Uzbekistan Graph constructed based on data developed by Brücker, Capuano, and Marfouk (2013). The graph clearly depicts the growing number of women emigrating and the widening gap between highly skilled female and male emigrants from Uzbekistan. These statistics suggest the need for an in- depth analysis of the gendered aspects of highly skilled emigration in Uzbekistan. The literature points to two major motivations for highly skilled women to emigrate: (1) traditional and conservative gender roles and (2) the lack of professional opportunities resulting from gender inequalities. Gender differences in migration patterns are most likely to emerge from gender discrimination in the country of origin (Naghsh Nejad and Young, 2014). Uzbekistan is a country and society with very traditional gender roles. Such traditional gender roles are also part of a new “nationalistic” narrative and a response to “westernization” be it in a Russian or global variant (Fayzullaeva, 2009, Tlostanova, 2010). Independent female migration is not encouraged and is not in tune with the image of a “traditional woman” (Cieslik, 2013). Most female respondents who took part in this study, while being supported by their families in their decision to independently move away from Uzbekistan, were also subject to many negative reactions from distant relatives, friends and acquaintances. To quote one female participant of the study: “They were trying to convince me that for a girl from Uzbekistan it is very important to get married and give birth to a child. If I left the country, the chances of me getting married would decrease”. Similarly, another woman explained: “Some of my relatives were telling my parents: “How come? You went crazy... How can you allow your unmarried daughter to go 2 In 2013, Brücker, Capuano, and Marfouk constructed a dataset of international emigration by origin, gender and education level for the years 1980-2010. The data was compiled through harmonising national censuses and