Abstract:

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced many Russians to leave their country. The enormous outflow of skilled workforce may become a source of economic development for host countries. Kazakhstan, being interested in skilled migrants, should try to fix the Russian migration inflow, analyzing and exploiting various factors of its integration.

Since 63% of Russian migrants moved with their partners, and 19% of them were with their underage children (Kostenko, Zavadskaya, Kamalov, Sergeeva 2022), integration in the host country is related to the successful adaptation of family members with respect to their needs.

Our goal is to investigate the role of the family in migrants’ adaptation in Central Asia compared to other countries – to assess the role of gender, age, children, etc., as well as the path of integration. By adaptation we mean the characteristics of the social capital, such as the growing number of social ties (the number of acquaintances, the interaction with the strangers) as well as the trustworthiness at the new place.

To fulfill the goal, we use empirical data, collected within two online surveys, proposed to Russian migrants (300+ respondents) in May-October 2023. To make our conclusions more precise, we compare the peculiarities of the social capital of migrants to the social capital of those who still stay in Russia.

We show that there are statistically significant differences in adaptation strategies in the host country (a) for men and women; (b) for those who have children and those who have not. Additionally we show if these differences exist in the Central Asian countries, or there are other factors influencing the adaptation.