Factors Influencing High Unemployment in Tajikistan

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Abstract The main aim of this paper is to identify the major determinants of unemployment in Tajikistan. As a result, three independent variables are chosen to be tested which are, lack of education, lack of skills, and low wages. The scope of the study is the population of Tajikistan and we followed the random sampling technique to collect the data. The data hence collected during April to May 2015 and a total of 390 usable questionnaires obtained. The regression results show that there is a positive and significant relationship between the lack of education and low wages with unemployment in the country. But there found no relationship between lack of skills and unemployment. Keywords; lack of education, lack of skills, and low wages, unemployment JEL Codes: E24, F22, O15 1. Introduction In the middle of the 20 th century Soviet Union started to face a big problem which is unemployment. This was one of the main reason why Soviet Union collapsed. After Soviet Union collapsed Tajikistan has got it is independence in 9 of September 1991. Since, Tajikistan was part of the Soviet Union before, it was facing the same challenges with unemployment. From 1992 until 1995 there was Civil War which people divided in to two parts, one for them wanted to have the Communist country while another part wanted Islamic country. During this civil war citizens face another problem which is scarcity of the food. In Tajikistan their main food is bread, therefore, this scarcity leads people to eat bread with husk and corn and some other staff. This was very tragic moment for each citizens of Tajikistan (Schweizer, 1994). Started from Civil War in Tajikistan there was problem with high unemployment. Most of the scientists and knowledgeable people left Tajikistan to other countries as Russia and US. The Current situation shows that almost 2 million citizens of Tajikistan migrated to Russia in order to find some jobs (Human Rights Watch, 2011). Tajikistan also facing a big problem which is unemployment of the citizens where it causes migration of civilians. The Index Economy Freedom portrays that unemployment rate in 2014 was 2.5%. According to Russian Migration Service about 2 millions of Tajik citizens migrate to Russia to find job. From this most of them are under 18- 29 ages while only few of them are 30 and above (Salimov, 2014). During these ages they supposed to gain knowledge or skills which would be helpful for them but their life force them to find work. In addition to this, poverty is very high in Tajikistan, according to research 86% of the citizens of Tajikistan live below poverty which means it is really high. Besides that, in Khatlon Region there has been made a research where mentioned that this region is agriculture part of Tajikistan and only 3% has been employed in agriculture which is very less. In this oblast about 2.7 million people live and out of 2.7 Million only 3% has been employed. In total in this region about 30% people has been unemployed which is very high (Bakanova and Carneiro, 2014). If in one region the number of unemployment tis about 30% then in other regions also might be high as well. Thus, unemployment in Tajikistan is very big problem which people migrated to Russia and find job there. Therefore, the researcher focus on the factors which is effecting the unemployment to be high in Tajikistan. In Tajikistan unemployment day by day rising. Most of the citizens are lack of knowledge or skills. The research has been done in 2011 and it is show that about 98% of Tajik citizens who work in Russia are lack of skill (Lemon, 2011). Besides that, there seems to be some feminism as well which increase the number of unemployment in Tajikistan. This