Labor Migrants at Risk: Formal and Informal Insurance Strategies among Central Asians in Moscow

Migrantes laborales en riesgo: estrategias de seguro formales e informales entre los centroasiáticos en Moscú

Sandra Pellet and Marine Talancé
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Marine Talancé: LEDa - Laboratoire d'Economie de Dauphine - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, ERUDITE - Equipe de Recherche sur l’Utilisation des Données Individuelles en lien avec la Théorie Economique - UPEC UP12 - Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12 - Université Gustave Eiffel

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Abstract: This article studies formal and informal risk-mitigating practices among Central Asian labor migrants in Moscow. The migration context is inherently uncertain, implying that migrants may try to protect themselves against potential risks by resorting to insurance mechanisms. However, migration is a unique situation that raises a number of questions. First of all, do formal protective institutions or insurance markets exist in the country of arrival? Secondly, if state or market insurance schemes exist, are they accessible to all migrants? What do at-risk labor migrants do when they cannot rely on formal schemes? Central Asian people are used to relying on social networks and informal practices in their home country. Previous articles have shown that these informal networks may be transposed in a migratory context, suggesting that informal risk-mitigating practices can be a substitute for formal insurance schemes and act as a social safety net for precarious migrants not covered by social security or insurance contracts. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between informal and formal insurance schemes and whether these can act as a substitute or complement among Tajikistani and Uzbekistani migrants, based on a survey of 1,213 labor migrants in Moscow.

Keywords: risk; migration; vulnerabilities; informal insurance; Russia; Central Asia; risque; vulnérabilités; assurance informelle; Russie; Asie centrale (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-01-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis
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Published in Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, 2023, 39 (I), pp.101-129. ⟨10.4000/remi.22238⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04261417

DOI: 10.4000/remi.22238

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