The politics of immigration control in Russia
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Date
2014
Authors
Schenk, C.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Nazarbayev University
Abstract
Despite a visa-free regime among all CIS countries, Russia has become increasingly
restrictive in its policies regulating migrants" access to the labor market. In particular, Russia instituted a
quota in 2007 that regulates how many work permits will be issued in each year. This quota has decreased
dramatically since its institution and since 2008 has stood well below the actual labor needs of the
Russian economy. The quota mechanism has been criticized by numerous experts in Russia for not being
in line with labor market need, for being based on political factors more than economic prerequisites,
and for having complicated feedback mechanisms between employers and government ministries.
According to migration experts in Russia, quotas are "determined through a complicated and multilayered
mechanism not backed by any serious methodology" (Ioffe & Zayonchkovskaya, 2010). The goal
of this poster presentation is to assess the rationale and methodology for quota formulation set out in
government documents. By assessing whether the methodology prescribed by the government is used
consistently across regions and identifying potential gaps in the methodology, we can begin to assert
whether the criticisms of the quota mechanism have merit and start to identify additional factors that
need to be considered.
Description
Keywords
politics, immigration control, regulating migrants, labor market, methodology