Economic swings, political instability and internal migration in Kyrgyzstan

Individual-level studies of the effects of economic fluctuations and political instability on migration are scarce and most focus on international migration. Implications of economic and political instability for internal migration, a massive phenomenon throughout the world, have not been well examined. Using recent nationally representative survey data from Kyrgyzstan, we look at variations in levels of internal migration and relate them to the economic and political instability in that Central Asian nation in the first decade of this century. Event-history models predicting yearly risks of migration detect no clear association of these risks with episodes of heightened political instability but show a decrease in the risks in response to the strongest economic shock of the observation period. The results also point to some instructive differences across types of area of residence, education, employment, gender, and ethnicity. These findings are interpreted within the context of complex intersections of politics, economy, and culture in this transitional post-Soviet setting.