Espace populations sociétés (Mar 2022)
The impact of shift migration on the intra-family life of residents of villages and small towns in Russia. On the example of the Republic of Bashkortostan
Abstract
The article presents the results of a sociological study, during which were revealed the changes occurring in contemporary Russian families because of participation of men (spouses) in shift migration, one of the forms of temporary employment. The author conducts a comparative analysis of intra-family relations in two categories of families. In the first, husbands regularly leave for temporary work outside their settlement (experimental group or families of shift migrants); in the second, the spouses are not involved in temporary migration (control group or «ordinary» families). The study was conducted in one of the largest in terms of population Russian regions – Bashkortostan, the choice of which is due to the high level of participation of its inhabitants in rotational migration, especially in villages and small towns.The families’ survey was conducted in 2018 in two small towns and five rural districts of Bashkortostan, located on the border with other regions, and having a low level of socio-economic development. The results of the study confirmed the hypotheses of temporary labor migration influence on the formation of peculiar translocal relations between family members during the husband’s stay away (the phenomenon of so-called «social presence against the background of physical absence»); on the transformation of intra-family relations of villages and small towns residents, which led to weakening of traditional men and women gender attitudes and stereotypes of behavior attitudes; on different consequences of shift migration for its participants – both positive and negative; on the predominance of forced participation of families in shift migration.
Keywords
