Spousal separation, selectivity and contextual effects: Exploring the relationship between international labour migration and fertility in post-Soviet Tajikistan

This paper contributes to the sparse literature about the impact of temporary migration on fertility in sending regions. It examines the case of male labour migration from postSoviet Tajikistan, a significant and relatively recent phenomenon. Fertility and migration models are solved simultaneously to account for cross-process correlation. There is clear evidence for a short-term disruptive effect of spousal separation, but it is too early to assess the implications for completed fertility. While there is no evidence for unobserved selectivity at the couple level, there is a significant positive covariance between the migration and fertility processes at the community level. Rather than reflecting the contextual influence of community migration patterns on fertility, this positive covariance may reflect selectivity: given that labour migration in Tajikistan is prompted by economic need, poorer communities – in which women tend to have higher than average fertility may also be expected to display an above average prevalence of labour migration. 1 School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK. E-Mail: [email protected]. Clifford: Spousal separation, selectivity and contextual effects 946 http://www.demographic-research.org