Women - labor migrants in Russia: Russian women and natives of other countries[Женщины – Трудовые Мигранты В России: Россиянки И Уроженки Других Стран]

This paper focuses on statistical estimates of female foreign labor migration to Russia and labor migration of Russian women within Russia. This is the first-time women’s internal and external labor migration is assessed in quantitative terms and the age composition of female migration is analyzed in comparison with the male labor migration. The main donor countries of labor migration to Russia for foreign female migrants were ranked; for domestic labor migration, the leading regions for employment of female labor migrants were identified, as well as the main regions that are donors of female labor migration. Data on internal labor migration also allows us to assess the sectoral employment of female migrants in comparison with the employed population and male migrants, and to highlight some social and demographic characteristics of this population group. The analysis is based on data from Rosstat and the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. The number of external female labor migrants is estimated at about one million, while the number of internal female labor migrants is less than 300 thousand annually. Female foreign migrants are older than male labor migrants, in contrast to domestic labor migrants, where women, on the contrary, are younger than men. The main donor countries for female labor migration are countries of the CIS, while the share of women in migration from the Central Asian countries (Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, which are the top donor countries in terms of labor migration to Russia) does not exceed 12–13%. The main sources of internal female labor migration are such regions as the Republic of Kalmykia (the absolute leader in terms of the intensity of such migration), the republics of Mari El, Mordovia, Chuvashia, Kabardino-Balkaria, followed by the regions of Central Russia. Regions of the Far East and the North, as well as Moscow and St. Petersburg, have little to no outgoing female labor migration. Female internal labor migrants work in all regions of Russia, with a clearly greater gravitation toward the largest urban agglomerations than male internal labor migrants.