?Caucasian? female labor migration in contemporary Russia ...

“economic migrants”, and the main task for the state is to make them legal, means controllable
and taxable.
Moreover, gaps in the realization of the state migration policy create chances for bureaucratic
manipulation. The state policy stresses the civil component of the nation state concept; however
at the level of bureaucratic practices ethnic component of nation state is heavily employed, so
“Caucasians’ face ethnic and race discrimination also at official level. As a result they prefer to
stay in shadow since there are no real benefits form being legal labor migrant in contemporary
Russia (Guerassimova, Pachenkov 2005).
Due to the lack of official structures and institutions working with migrants and supporting them,
on the one hand, and due to restrictive residential registration system, on the other hand,
overwhelming majority of migrants stay unregistered in Russia, meaning – illegal. Consequently
they have no right to work, no ability to pay taxes, no access to social benefits. They live and
work in a black or at the best in a grey sphere. Migrants from Caucasus region of former USSR
are even in worse conditions due to ethnic hostility and racism which are widespread in Russian
society (Brednikova, Pachenkov 1999).
Changing patterns: female migration in Russia
Scholars studying migration note that although male migration was predominant globally for last
several decades, it seems that now patterns of migration are changing (Carling 2005).
Feminization of migration has been recognized as a tendency at the global level (Castles and
Miller 1993: 67). Today, women constitute about half of international migrants and in some
countries female migrants actually outnumber male migrants (Boyd, 1992; Simon and Brettell,
1986). So now “male migration” pattern has been replaced by “family migration” and female
migration. This tendency could be noted in Russia too. For example, at the territory of Russia
one can find all three types of gender composition of migration, for example, Armenians and
Azerbaijanis seem to represent “family migration” patterns, and overwhelming majority of
migrants from Moldova, Ukraine and Byelorussia are females (Brednikova 2003).
Concerning the family migration, scholars suggest an explanation as follows. In early 1990-s a
significant proportion of adult males from former USSR left their countries in search of job
opportunities. This caused the situation when women take responsibility for the traditional
patterns of male authority. Women got new power but on the other hand they were disappointed
with this situation of being a woman and a man at the same time (in terms of gender roles and
obligations in "functional" sense). Studies of Armenian women staying in Armenia while their
husbands had immigrated to Russia showed that women complained about this situation because
of suffering living without man and because of a sort of "symbolic loss" caused by break of
traditional gender relations and deviation "from the ideal of the exemplary traditional household,
from the norm to which everybody is expected to aspire" (Shahnazaryan 2005). As a result those
of them who did not want to be "virtual widows" - took children and followed their husbands in
migration. They might come even without asking a permit from husbands or other elder relatives
from husband’s part of family (since one anyway needs support from her social networks to
immigrate, so here women relied on their own part of kin or friend networks). This situation
leads to changes in the family relations of the migrants, it is resulted in the reconfiguration of the
gender roles and gender contracts in their families, because women become relatively free and
self-dependent breadwinners, while men stay as house husbands (Brednikova 2003).
In terms of employment female migrants usually occupy the same niches as their male
predecessors – mainly retail trade. Women who come as followers of their husbands are included
in their husbands social networks that allow them to find jobs. However they often establish \
enter their own “female migrants” networks and find job and new opportunities through them.
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