Labor market integration of returned educational migrants in Turkmenistan

Abstract

Turkmenistan has experienced increasing educational migration, and many of these students hope to return home after graduating. The ability of returned migrants to succeed in Turkmenistan’s labor market is complicated by a variety of factors, including variation in educational quality across countries, intrusive state regulation of foreign education, and Turkmenistan’s large informal sector. Based on a survey of 98 Turkmen citizens, this study compares the career trajectories and perceptions of the labor market of people educated in Turkmenistan to those educated elsewhere. Because men and women undertake different strategies of educational migration, it also compares patterns of labor market integration by gender. Country of education does appear to matter for employment in Turkmenistan, but the effect is most prominent immediately after graduation. Women were less likely to be employed in Turkmenistan, partly because they were more likely to have been educated abroad, and more likely to have a partner abroad.

Keywords:

• Turkmenistan
• human capital
• migration
• gender
• higher education

Acknowledgments

The study described in this paper was conducted in collaboration with a citizen of Turkmenistan who wishes to remain anonymous, but without whose participation the study would never have happened. I am also indebted to this colleague for material on the history of educational reforms in Turkmenistan and current economic development programs, and for preliminary analysis of the survey data. I also wish to thank Christy Glass and Rick Krannich for their valuable input on survey questionnaires, and to thank the anonymous reviewer for excellent comments on an earlier draft.