Migration and union dissolution in a changing socio-economic context: The case of Russia

Magdalena Muszyńska-Spielauer; Hill Kulu

doi:10.4054/DemRes.2007.17.27

Volume 17 - Article 27 | Pages 803–820

Migration and union dissolution in a changing socio-economic context: The case of Russia

By Magdalena Muszyńska-Spielauer, Hill Kulu

Date received:

25 Sep 2006

Date published:

20 Dec 2007

Word count:

6225

Keywords:

event history analysis, migration, rural areas, Russia, union dissolution, urban areas

DOI:

10.4054/DemRes.2007.17.27

This article is part of the Special Collection 6 "Interdependencies in the Life Course: Family, Fertility, and Migration"

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Abstract

Previous studies show that family migration is usually to the benefit of the man’s professional career and that it has a negative impact on the woman’s economic well-being and employment. This study extends previous research by examining the effect of family migration on union dissolution. We use the event-history data of two retrospective surveys from Russia and apply hazard regression. The analysis shows that couples who move frequently over long distances have a significantly higher risk of union dissolution than couples who do not move or move only once.
Our further analysis reveals that the risk of disruption for frequent movers is high when the migrant woman has a job. Frequent migrants had a high risk of union dissolution during the Soviet period but they faced no such risk during the post-Soviet socio-economic transition. We argue that frequent moving increases union instability through a variety of mechanisms, the effect of which may vary across socio-economic contexts.