BAKU, Azerbaijan, Jan. 28
By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:
Several state programs have increased the competitiveness of Kazakh students on the global labor market, which bodes well for Kazakhstan’s future, World Bank Economist in Central Asia William Seitz told Trend.
According to Seitz, international migration drives economic growth and poverty reduction in Central Asia.
“Last year, personal remittances to Central Asia totaled more than six times the amount of all official development assistance received over the preceding year. This money, mostly sent home by seasonal workers, was highly targeted to those who need it most. About 19 percent of households in poorest 20 percent of districts have at least one migrant abroad, compared to less than two percent for areas in the top 20. These trends highlight the efforts of many young people, who take a difficult and uncertain path to employment abroad, but through their hard work are pushing the region towards eradicating poverty,” Seitz said.
As economies grow and wages rise in areas with high demand for workers people become more mobile, which improves the economic health of both sending and receiving communities by improving the match between where workers and jobs are located, the WB economist added.
“Countries in which workers are more mobile tend to have lower domestic unemployment, greater poverty reduction, and higher disposable income than otherwise comparable countries. Beyond increasing income, migrant-sending countries also tend to have faster rates of technology transfer, deeper international trade networks, and higher rates of investment,” he said.
Kazakhstan’s migration flows are somewhat different from the other countries in the region.
“Increasingly, as income and economic specialization has increased, Kazakhstan has become a transit and destination country for migrant workers (in 2015, almost 950,000 citizens from other Central Asian countries temporarily resided in Kazakhstan, up from 500,000 in 2011). Several programs, including the Bolashak fellowship, have also increased the competitiveness of Kazakh students on the global labor market. This bodes well for Kazakhstan’s future,” Seitz said.
According to Seitz, these new professionals raise the profile of the Kazakh economy and increase Kazakhstan’s global connectedness. The rising local and global demand for highly skilled Kazakh processionals is also a signal to new students that greater investment in education is highly rewarded, leading to a virtuous cycle.
He added that migration in Central Asia is a crucial step in the region’s economic development.
“The combined benefits of healthier labor markets, rising productivity, remittance income, and increasing connectedness to the world all contribute to rising prosperity. Because these benefits accumulate disproportionately in some of the region’s poorest areas, migration remains one of the key drivers of falling poverty and broadly shared prosperity. The prospect of rising mobility among educated professionals is currently mostly limited to Kazakhstan, where the educational system is increasingly competing at a global level. This trend bodes well for the country’s prospects, and is expected to boost the returns to education, increasing the incentives for future generations to invest in their human capital,” Seitz said.
---
Follow the author on twitter: @nargiz_sadikh
