Road home: The role of ethnicity in the post-Soviet regional migration

Abstract

This article investigates the role of ethnicity in determining migration patterns, by using a newly constructed late- and post-Soviet dataset. The members of various indigenous ethnic groups, who had been spread across the Soviet territories, had to decide whether or not to leave the land in which they suddenly became diaspora after the dissolution of the USSR. The post-Soviet case reveals that ethnicity played a crucial and independent role in migration decision and destination choice, as potential migrants were likely to move to the regions where their co-ethnics are prevalent and/or likely to stay if they are already in such regions. This trend of ‘ethnic unmixing’ is observed in a novel dataset regarding the regional migration patterns of major ethnic groups in the post-Soviet space. Econometric analyses using this dataset also confirm that ethnic composition of a region, along with wages and employment, has significant effects on the regional migration patterns. This article also shows that the post-Soviet migration trend was a complete reverse of pre-collapse migration which had been in the direction of ethnic mixing.