Conservation and development of human resources through the return migration policy

Conservation and development of human resources through the return migration policy

O. Ryndzak,

Purpose. The purpose of the article is to develop the theoretical and methodological foundations for the study of return migration policy based on its information support, including regression analysis and authors' sociological research on return intentions of Ukrainian migrants.

Methodology / approach. The mathematical tools were used for the assessment of Ukraine's economical losses, related to migration. With the help of the sociological method (survey) migrants' intentions and main motives to return were investigated. Stepwise regression model was built for identification of main factors of Ukrainian population's international migration. Besides, general scientific methods were used in the study, such as: analysis, generalization, systematization, tabular and graphical.

Results. Analysis showed the lack of statistical and sociological information on international migration (particularly return migration) of Ukrainian population. It substantiates the need for improving the system of information provision of migration policy. The results of the survey of the migrants from the Carpathian region of Ukraine (conducted in 2020) show low level of their readiness to return. According to the answers to the questionnaire, there are two main circumstances that could motivate migrants to return: high level of wages and general improving of economic situation in Ukraine. Due to the regression model it was found that the emigration of the population is influenced by the following factors: average monthly wages, gross regional product per capita, foreign direct investment per economically active person and the share of the population with incomes below the subsistence level. The article provides main benefits and ways of implementation of the return migration policy. Particularly, circular migration is considered as a good way to slow down losses of human resources. It is beneficial for all institutional units of the migration process.

Originality / scientific novelty. The methodology for the consequences of international migration study is improved. In particular, the formula for determination of migration losses through the calculation of economic activity losses is proposed and calculated for the first time. The theoretical foundation of return migration policy is developed. In particular, the model of return migration process on the individual level is elaborated. The sociological tool for the return migration investigation is developed and tested.

Practical value / implications. The practical recommendations for the human resources conservation are worked out. The questions for the survey, developed by the authors, could be used in further investigations in this issue. The model of return migration process is useful for developing a comprehensive return migration policy, which could support migrants at all stages of this process: decisions making, movement and reintegration.

Key words: international migration, return migration, circular migration, human resources, migration policy, Ukraine.

Introduction and review of literature

The human potential is the main value of each society and important precondition for the national development. But intensification of international migration processes and its poor regulation leads to the losses of human potential for certain countries, donors of the workforce. Ukraine is one of them. In recent decades, it belongs to the top-10 countries of origin for international migrants. Generally, the number of emigrants from Ukraine amounted to 6 million persons in 2020 [1, p. 16]. Temporary labor and educational migration is growing rapidly, often transforming into permanent one [2, p. 12-14]. For example, the number of Ukrainian students abroad has increased from 32.9 thousand persons in 2009 [3, p. 9] to 77.6 thousand persons in 2019 [2, p. 14]. Restrictive measures implemented in many countries in response to the coronavirus pandemic spreading have significantly affected the intensity, course and direction of migration processes in the world, but have not stopped them. At the same time, under the quarantine conditions most of Ukrainian labor migrants decided to stay abroad (even without work) instead of returning home [4]. The problem of migration losses and the need to preserve human potential is still relevant for Ukraine because of many negative consequences, connected with poorly regulated international migration. The main ones are as follows: demographic losses (in case of permanent migration); loss of the most competitive productive workforce, `brain drain'; high costs of training of specialists, who continue to work outside the country; lack of contributions to pension and social funds (in case of illegal migration); loss of migrants' qualification, deterioration of their health; worsening of family relations, family breakdown and so on. It exacerbates the need for finding new decisions and migration policy improvement.

Different aspects of the theoretical and methodological foundations of migration policy are developed in a range of recent scientific publications [5; 6; 7]. Due to the intensification of immigration processes to the developing countries, research on immigration policy and currant issues of migrant integration are becoming popular. For example, institutional and legal perspectives for EU strategies for the integration of migrants from the third countries are highlighted in the studies of European researchers [8]. One of the latest valuable research concerns the analysis of factors that affect the immigration policies of different countries and determination of the role of ecological factors [9].

It is well known that agricultural sector is one of the most popular for employment of Ukrainian migrants [10, p. 41]. Due to the great impact of international migration on this sector in developing countries, it has aroused the interest of scientists and caused a number of interesting studies in different countries. First of all, they concern immigrants' farming and employments' problems in rural areas [11; 12; 13].

Return migration studies are mostly presented by the scientific works devoted to certain countries, programmes or projects. For instance, overview over return migration policy measures developed in Latvia and their evaluation in the light of return migrants' perspectives are presented in the chapter of the book “The Emigrant Communities in Latvia” [14]. Evaluation of the assisted voluntary return and reintegration pilot program in Canada was made by Canada Border Services Agency [15]. In Germany very interesting study was devoted to analysing the role of life satisfaction for migrant return intentions [16]. The comprehensive analysis of existing instruments of return migration policies in more than ten countries was conducted by the experts of the International Center for Migration Policy Development [17]. Evaluation of return and reintegration policies in eight OECD European countries was carried out by researchers of this organization [18].

Nowadays there are several global return migration projects initiated by the host European countries. For example, the Programme “Migration for development” is being carried out in Germany (term: 2017-2023). The focus is on professional training and advice on the migration and reintegration in the country of origin. In total, the programme has already provided almost 952 thousand individual measures [19].

Despite the valuable contribution to migration studies made by the Ukrainian scientists [20; 21; 22; 23; 24], there is a shortage of research concerning properly return migration issues in Ukraine. Furthermore, the problem of migration losses of human resources together with insufficient state regulation require further research and finding new solutions.

The purpose of the article. The purpose of the article is to develop the theoretical and methodological foundations for the study of return migration policy based on its information support, including regression analysis and authors' sociological research on return intentions of Ukrainian migrants.

Results and discussion

Nowadays there is no universally accepted definition of return migration. In the context of international migration, this term is defined by the International Organization for Migration as “the movement of persons returning to their country of origin after having moved away from their place of habitual residence and crossed an international border” [25, p. 186]. Such return can be implemented in voluntary or forced way. For statistical purposes, the United Nations defines returnees as “persons returning to their country of citizenship after having been international migrants (whether short-term or long-term) in another country and who are intending to stay in their own country for at least a year” [26, p. 94].

This study focuses on all forms of voluntary return of international migrants to their origin country, regardless of their further intentions. Consequently, such types of return migration can be distinguished: permanent (return of international migrants to their origin country for permanent residence - resettlement); temporary (with the intention to go abroad again to perform work or provide services). Return migration can be classified by different temporalities [27]. So, we distinguish between longterm (for the purpose of long stay) short-term and circular type of temporary migration.

The most widespread type of international migration in Ukraine is labor one. But there is no precise information on this issue. However, the estimations from 3 to 5 million are widespread [28]. Much smaller is the number of those, who got a job abroad with the help of private employment agencies (Figure 1). It is growing permanently and in 2020 was 86.3 thousand persons. However, it is known that only very small part of all labor migrants use this way of employment.

Thus, there is a lack of statistical and sociological information on international migration (particularly return migration) of Ukrainian population. Studies of temporary labor migration are fragmentary in Ukraine. For example, the State Statistics Service of Ukraine conducted only three national surveys with different frequency (in 2008, 2012 and 2017), devoted to the international labor migration issues.

Figure 1. Dynamics of the number of Ukrainian citizens employed abroad by the private employment agencies, 2000-2020. Source: built by the authors based on data [29]

Due to these investigations, we can estimate that in average approximately 40% of Ukrainian labor migrants returned home [30]. At the same time, statistics on international permanent migration is available.

Analysis of its dynamics over the past 8 years shows that the number of population returning to Ukraine is very small, compared to those who emigrate (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Dynamics of international migration of the population of Ukraine, 2013-2020. Source: built by the authors based on data [29; 31]

In 2020 there were only 1.5 thousand returnees, which is two times less than in 2013. Additional information about returnees from Ukraine is available due to the IOM's publications on assisted voluntary returns (Figure 2). Such statistics do not exclude the possibility of a double count. In any case, precise estimation of returns is not the aim of this study, but it is important to show general tendencies and problems.

The growth of migration flows from Ukraine is also evidenced by statistics on first residence permits issued in the European Union. In particular, citizens of Ukraine have been received the highest number of such permits since 2014. And this number has a tendency to increase, except 2020 when the flow of residence permits dropped generally as a result of pandemic (Figure 3). Generally, more than 0.5 million of Ukrainian citizens annually receive residence permits in Europe for the last years, mainly for employment reasons (for example, in 2020 it was 85.8% of all permits) [32].

Figure 3. First residence permits issued in the European Union for citizens of Ukraine, 2014-2020. Source: built by the authors based on data [32]

In addition to demographic losses Ukraine, as a donor of workforce, carries also general migration ones. Usually, migration losses are estimated through the underproduction of GDP of origin country [33]. Nevertheless, such calculation is problematic in Ukraine because of luck of necessary information about those, who leave, such as: employment status before migration, level of incomes in the origin and host countries. In addition, the amount of remittances should be considered, which are spent in the homeland. Based on the Lopez' and Murray's methodology for measuring losses of healthy years of life [34], we propose to determine migration losses through the calculation of economic activity losses. Since labor migration can have different durations, it is reasonable to calculate the annual losses in person-years of migration (formula 1).

(1)

where LN_a - loss of economic activity, person-years;

N_a - economically active population, thousands of people;

ti - period of time, spent in labor migration, month, і є [1; 12];

Pi - probability of external labor migration.

Using formula (1), we estimated that in 2010 - the first half of 2012 the loss of economic activity amounted to approximately 590 thousand person-years annually, or 2.64-2.67% of the economically active population of the country annually. During 2015-2017, this indicator was 877.8 thousand person-years annually (calculated on the basis of data from sample surveys on labor migration in Ukraine [30, p. 9]), or from 4.85 to 4.92% of the economically active population. The increase in losses for that period of time is caused by the increase in the frequency and duration of labor migration as well as by the decrease in the number of economically active population.

Thus, estimation of migration losses is an essential part of migration policy information support and an important precondition of setting its main priorities and efficient measures elaboration. Besides, development of the return migration policy instruments has to be based on consideration of needs and intentions of migrants. Sociological studies can provide such information. Currently there are separate projects and initiatives at different levels to study this issue. For example, we use the results of a sociological survey of international migrants from Ukraine curried out by the authors in the working group (State Institution “Institute of Regional Research named after M. I. Dolishniy of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine”). The collection of primary information was conducted in March - April 2020. In order to study return intentions, the online questionnaire was distributed through the social networks and modern means of communication among adult migrants from the Carpathian region of Ukraine (Zakarpatska, Ivano-Frankivska, Lvivska and Chernivetska oblast (provinces)) which were abroad at the time of the study. One hundred sixty-three migrants took part in the survey, of which 55.2% were female and 44.8% - male. Most of the respondents were young people in the age of 30 (37.5%) and 31-45 (50.8%); the share of middle-aged people (46-60 years) was 6.8%, elderly - 4.9%. The average age of the respondents was 35 years. return migration policy economic motivation

The results of the survey show that the most common answer to the question about the intentions of migrants to return to Ukraine is: “I would like to return, but I do not see any prospects for myself in Ukraine” (31%). Another 12% of respondents have such intention, but they have not decided yet. Every tenth migrant intends to return, but not in the near future. Only about 4% of respondents decided to return home soon. And the same number of migrants will return after completing training, internships or projects. The share of people living in Ukraine, but sometimes moving abroad to work, is 16.6%. Another 6% often travel to Ukraine and live there for some time. The Ukrainians, who will definitely not return to their homeland are 16.6%.

Thus, the share of migrants who have definitely decided to return to Ukraine is quite small. Under such conditions, it is important to find out what circumstances could motivate migrants to return. The results of the survey show that main motivation factors could be the high level of wages and the improvement of the economic situation in Ukraine (Table 1). In total, the majority of respondents indicated them (92.6%). Such result is not surprisingly, because it is well known that wages are one of the most important factors of international migration not only in Ukraine but also in many other countries [35].

Table 1

Circumstances that could motivate migrants to return (in% of the number of observations*, several options were allowed)

Notes. *Some temporary labor migrants (8%) didn't choose any option; almost each of the tenth respondents would not return to Ukraine in any case.

**The ranks of significance are defined by the frequency of the choice of a particular answer. Source: survey data, 2020.

To sum up, vision of individual prospects or improving the economic situation in Ukraine are very important factors that could motivate migrants to return. It is worthwhile to mention that according to the sociological research lack of seeing prospects or confidence in the future is also a very important `push' factor of international migration [36].

The development of socio-economic policy measures for human resources conservation primarily requires research on the main factors causing external migration in order to their further regulation. That's why the significance of 20 main factors in terms of regions of Ukraine (2004-2018) which may affect the migration activity of the population were analyzed. Using the method of stepwise inclusion of factor variables in the regression model, several regression equations were constructed. After testing for multi-collinearity four the most significant factors were selected. Consequently, the regression equation is as follows:

Y = 2.4 - 1.85xi - 0.73x2 - 0.07xs + 0.08x4, (2)

where Y - emigration rate, persons per 10000 populations;

x1 - average monthly salary per employee, USD;

x2 - gross regional product per capita, USD;

x3 - foreign direct investment per one economically active person, USD; x4 - the share of the population with income below the subsistence level.

In the first model (Table 2), the value of the coefficient of determination R² = 0.27 shows that about 27% of changes in the emigration rate can be explained by salary. Addition of the second factor, which characterizes the gross regional product per capita, led to an increase in the coefficient of determination to 0.67. The third factor improved the regression model, but only slightly. Generally, the Table 2 shows that the fourth model best describes the changes that may occur in migration processes. The coefficient of determination (R² = 0.76) shows that 76% of the changes in the value of the emigration coefficient for the analyzed period is due to the factors included in the model. An indicator of the closeness of the correlation for the regression model is the multiple correlation coefficient R, which is equal to 0.87. It indicates a close correlation between the emigration rate and the explanatory variables in the equation.

Table 2

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