Migration From the Mountains to the Valley in the North Caucasus: The Challenges of Diversity

Abstract

The paper deals with impact of mountains-to-valley migration on marital and fertility behavior among the indigenous peoples of Dagestan, in the North Caucasus, Russia). This migration has been rather intensive during recent decades, making the adaptation of these migrants a substantial challenge for state social policy. One issue relevant for migrant adaptation is whether and how migration changes demographic characteristics like age at marriage, number of children per woman, etc. If contrasts on these characteristics between migrants and the native population of immigration sites are observed, this may constitute a special challenge in migrant adaptation. The paper considers data on two migrant communities relocating from the mountains of Daghestan to the valley part of that region or to other regions of Russia. Analyzing the survey
results, we argue that the impact of the mountains-to-valley migration on matrimonial and reproductive behavior can be different in different communities. For one of the communities under study, differences between migrants and those who stay in the mountains are significant, whereas for the other one they are not. Moreover, for the former, but not for the latter community, the parameters of ‘migration history’, such as age at migration, are significant in determining the woman’s age at marriage and the number of children in regression models. Thus, surprisingly, migration flows geographically very close to each other appear to be different in sustainability of their marital and fertility patterns to migration. Possible accounts for this diversity are discussed, as well as the implications this has for social policy.