The Socio-economic Consequences of the Policy of Restricting Population Mobility for Georgian International Labor Migrants in the Conditions of COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Since the end of 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic emerged as one of the biggest global challenges that have not completely disappeared yet. Georgia, a small country in the South Caucasus with a population of slightly more than 3.7 million and 69,7 thousand km² of course had not be an exception. The main goal of the research is to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic as a factor for Georgian labor migrants’ mobility motivation as well as return strategy and compare it with the pre-pandemic migration patterns. Our survey demonstrates the Georgian government's response to the Corona crisis and the migration policy toward migrants stranded in their destination countries. The main goal of the research is to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic as a factor for Georgian labor migrants' mobility motivation and return strategy and compare it with the pre-pandemic migration patterns. The survey is intended to show some specifics of migration trends from Georgia and the niche labor activity of Georgian migrants in the international labor migration market from the gender viewpoint; particular, to analyze most Georgian women migrants' responses to the pandemic who are mainly occupied in the live-in care sector (in private households) and their return strategy due to Covid-19 global crisis. The subject of the survey is a transnational migrant family amid Covid-19 challenges, mainly migrant women from Georgia with their attitudes towards the pandemic on the backdrop of the caregiver labor activity in the destination countries. The main task is to identify what has changed for migrant women and their families in Georgia since the beginning of the virus outbreak and if this unexpected shift became the way back home. How was their strategy changed in comparison to the pre-pandemic period? Georgian migrant women's status in destination countries as domestic workers is temporary. We witness many single spouses migrating autonomously as caregivers leaving their husbands and children behind in Georgia. The reason for splitting a nuclear family is caused due to expect the illegal status of a potential migrant. The survey supported our hypotheses on the mobility strategy of labor migrants. The fact that most Georgian care worker migrant women are in the irregular labor force and their families still need financial support from abroad limits their return prospects to the home country. Nevertheless, for those who hold a legal residence permit, returning to Georgia (due to the COVID-19 pandemic) is temporary, and after lifting the mobility regulations, they would rush back. On the one hand, better compensation for their work in the host state and the less attractive job environment in the home country (unemployment or meager wages/pensions) completely obscures the prospect of their return to Georgia.  To test our assumption, we have used a qualitative research method - an in-depth interview. We referred to the snowball sampling method to create a network of respondents. The online interview discussion plan was elaborated and practiced via the Messenger platform to both - migrant women in the country of their labor destination and temporary return migrants in Georgia. The length of each interview lasted, on average, one hour. Our 24 interviewees, urban and rural dwellers who originated from various regions of Georgia, resided at the moment of interviews in the cities and towns of Greece (7 respondents), Italy (7), Israel (1), Russia (3), Turkey (1) and the United States (5) out of whom just three were temporarily return migrants, due to the pandemic crisis. The participants ranged from their mid-twenty the to late sixties (from 25 to 69 years old). The research took place during the Summer-Fall seasons of 2021. Our research is mainly based on discourse analyses of academic sources and online interviews. It demonstrates the general trend of migrants' future aspirations towards their mobility strategy and the way back to Georgia due to the threat of Covid 19. We thank the Faculty of Social Work and Health of Kiel University of Applied Sciences (Germany) and the Erasmus+ international mobility program (online) for supporting the presented project.