HOW THE EXODUS OF LABOR MIGRANTS FROM UKRAINE WILL AFFECT THE ELECTIONS IN 2019

Ihar Tyshkevich, an analyst at the Ukrainian Institute for the Future, for “Хвиля” (“Hvylya”)

Minister of Social Policy Reva said that there are about 3.2 million Ukrainians constantly working abroad, and there are up to 9 million Ukrainians involved in labor migration. This is just one of the estimates. There are more unpleasant data. 3.2 million people living and working abroad – this is the estimated minimum and this figure will be increasing, especially as Poland intends to simplify the regularization of families of foreign workers. That is, labor migrants will begin to take wives, husbands, children to live with them abroad. From the point of view of the labor market, many people wrote about the problem. But I decided to look at this from another point. An employee is an adult citizen, a potential voter. If he, while living abroad, does not participate in voting, then those citizens who remained at home do it. And there’s no guarantee that the result of this voting will not make that employee (who is already working abroad) start seeking ways how to settle down in another state permanently.