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ABSTRACT Title of Document: the CHANGING SPATIAL ABSTRACT T it le of Document: THE CHANGING SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE POPULATION OF THE FORMER SOVIET UNION Timothy Edmund Heleniak, Ph.D., 2009 Directed By: Dr. Martha Geores, Department of Geography When it existed, the Soviet Union was a closed economic and migration space with t ig h t l y-controlled movement of goods, people, and ideas across its borders. It was also an ethnically complex region with 130 different nationalities, fi ft y-three w it h territorially-based ethnic homelands, of which fifteen became the successor states to the Soviet Union. The breakup of the Soviet Union, the transition towards market economies, and the liberalization of the societies have together greatly impacted the lives of people in the region. Many found themselves in countries or regions with dramatically shrunken economies or as ethnic minorities in newly independent states and many have chosen migration as a strategy of adaptation to the new circumstances in which they found themselves. Using established migration theory, this dissertation examines the causes of migration among the fifteen successor states since 1991. The main test was to compare the relative impact of economic factors versus ethnic factors driving migration movements in the post-Soviet space. The results showed that while some of the movements could be classified as people migrating t o t h e ir ethnic homelands, a majority could be explained by neoclassical economic theories of migration and the large income differentials that have resulted from the economic transition. Other theories that have been found to explain migration in other world migration systems were found to also be applicable in the former Soviet Union. THE CHANGING SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE POPULATION OF THE FORMER SOVIET UNION By Timothy Edmund Heleniak Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2009 Advisory Committee: Associate Professor Martha Geores, Chair Professor John Townshend Assistant Professor In-Young Yeo Professor Robert J. Kaiser, University of Wisconsin-Madison Associate Professor Alexander Chen, Dean’s Representative © Copyright by Timothy Edmund Heleniak 2009 Table of Contents Table of Contents ......................................................................................................ii List of Tables............................................................................................................ iv List of Figures ........................................................................................................... v Chapter 1. Introduction........................................................................................... 1 1.1 The Triple Transition and Its Impact on Migration ............................................... 1 1.2 Key research questions ........................................................................................ 2 1.3 Outline of Dissertation ......................................................................................... 9 Chapter 2: An Overview of Migration in the Post-Soviet Space ......................... 11 2.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 11 2.2 Migration and Population Change in the FSU .................................................... 13 2.2.1 The Breakup of the Soviet Union and 28 million “New” Migrants ........... 20 2.3 Measuring Migration in the Former Soviet Union .............................................. 24 2.4 Migration Partners of the FSU States ................................................................. 29 2.5 Migration Turnover in the Former Soviet Union ................................................ 33 2.6 Changes in the Ethnic Composition of the Post-Soviet States ............................. 36 Chapter 3. The Migration System in the former Soviet Union ............................ 42 3.1 The former Soviet Union as the Forgotten Migration System ............................. 42 3.1.1 Defining the Migration System in the FSU ............................................... 48 3.1.2 Migration Flows since the Breakup of the Soviet Union........................... 49 3.2 Literature on migration in the FSU ..................................................................... 53 3.2.1 Research on Migration during the Soviet Period ..................................... 54 3.2.2 Data on Post-Soviet Migration ................................................................ 55 3.2.3 Current literature on causes of post-Soviet migration .............................. 57 3.3 The Initiation of International Migration across the post-Soviet Space ............... 59 3.3.1 Neoclassical economics ........................................................................... 60 3.3.2 New economics of migration ................................................................... 64 3.3.3 Segmented or Dual Labor Market Theory ................................................ 70 3.3.4 World systems theory .............................................................................. 77 3.3.5 Conclusions............................................................................................. 82 Chapter 4. Economic Factors Influencing Migration across the FSU States ...... 83 4.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 83 4.2 Methods and data ............................................................................................... 87 4.2.1 Neoclassical theories of migration .......................................................... 87 4.2.2 Modeling migration in the post-Soviet space ........................................... 89 4.2.3 Dependent and independent variables ..................................................... 92 4.3 Results: Neoclassical economic migration theories in the post-Soviet space ....... 99 4.3.1 Model 1 - Time Series .............................................................................. 99 4.3.2 Model 2 - Russia ................................................................................... 102 4.4 Discussion ....................................................................................................... 104 ii Chapter 5. Ethnic Factors Influencing Migration among the FSU States ......... 107 5.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 107 5.2 Theories of Diasporas and Migration ............................................................... 108 5.2.1 Defining post-Soviet diasporas .............................................................. 108 5.2.2 Theories of and actors in diaspora migration ........................................ 110 5.2.3 The creation of ethnicity in the Soviet Union ......................................... 115 5.2.4 The creation of ethnic homelands in the Soviet Union............................ 117 5.2.5 Ethnic mixing in the Soviet Union.......................................................... 119 5.2.6 Literature on diaspora migration in the post-Soviet space ..................... 124 5.3 Measuring Diaspora Migration and Ethnic Segregation .................................... 125 5.3.1 Data on ethnicity and migration by ethnicity in the FSU........................ 125 5.3.2 Segregation indexes............................................................................... 129 5.4 Diaspora Migration and Ethnic Segregation of the FSU States ......................... 129 5.4.1 Homeland concentrations and change in diaspora groups ..................... 129 5.4.2 Migration by nationality ........................................................................ 133 5.4.3 Ethnic segregation indexes .................................................................... 142 5.4.4 Explaining diaspora migration in the FSU ............................................ 149 5.5 Implications ..................................................................................................... 156 Chapter 6: The Perpetuation of International Migration across the former Soviet Union ......................................................................................................... 159 6.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 159 6.2 Social Capital Theory ...................................................................................... 159 6.3 Cumulative Causation ...................................................................................... 164 6.4 Other aspects of post-Soviet migration that need to be considered .................... 166 Chapter 7: Conclusions ....................................................................................... 172 7.1 Which migration theories worked best? ........................................................... 172 7.2 The Current Migration Situation in the FSU ..................................................... 174 7.3 Combining Neoclassical and Diaspora Migration Theories .............................. 175 7.4 Implications of Migration for the Region ......................................................... 184 7.5 Extensions and Further Research ..................................................................... 187 Appendix 1: Nationalities included in all Soviet Population Censuses.................... 191 Bibliography
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