SANITARY-HYGIENIC AND MEDICAL DIVIDENDS AS FORMS OF SOCIAL DIVIDENDS OF LABOUR MIGRATION IN ISSUES OF HEALTH

© 2017 Alisa TOLSTOKOROVA

2017 – №1 (13)


Key words: social dividends, Ukrainian labour migration, healthy way of life, attitude to health, medicaldividends of migration, sanitary-hygienic dividends of migration

Abstract: The goal ofthis paperis to tracethe impact of migratory life-style on healthcondition of labour migrants and their attitude to issues of healthand healthyway of life.The paper draws from the results of a field researсhof foreign experienсe of Ukrainian labour migrants.The paper defines positive and negative aspects of the influence of foreign employmenton the attitude of labour migrants to issues of health.


This study is one of the components of a multistage trans-disciplinary project whose goal is to study gender aspects of post-Soviet Ukrainian labor migration, or “zarobitchchanstva“, a phenomenon that, according to experts in recent years, has become for many Ukrainians not only a lifestyle but also a way of thinking and collective existential culture.

Studies indicate that the approach to labor migration from the point of view of its influence on individuals, both migrants themselves and members of the remaining families of families, shows that migration is a gendered phenomenon. This is confirmed by the statistics of migration flows from Ukraine, indicating their gender-specific nature. For example, in some countries, for example, the Czech Republic and Portugal, the majority of Ukrainian “zarobitschans” are men – 67% and 62% respectively, and in others, such as Italy and Greece, women predominate – 83.2% and 70% (Na rozdorіzhzhі… 2009). In addition, labor migration has become a mechanism that has aggravated gender segmentation in the migrant labor market. Thus, according to the Ukrainian office of the Ombudsman for human rights, women abroad get employed in traditional women’s organizations as housecleaners, nurses, nannies, governesses, dancers in restaurants and bars, and men are employed as manual workers, drivers, mechanics, locksmiths and others (Dopovіd’… 2003).

In the course of the study it was revealed that while working abroad, Ukrainians earn not only financial but also social capital as an additional bonus to their foreign employment, which we define as “social dividends of migration”. By this we mean the surplus value of migration experience in the form of individual non-financial accumulation – social, ethical, cultural, aesthetic, educational, civil and other types of capital (Tolstokorova 2015, Tolstokorova 2013). In particular, we have identified such types of social dividends of migration as linguistic, cultural-aesthetic, spiritual, value, worldview, civil, disciplinary, professional, culinary, and social dividends of personal growth, healthy lifestyles and gender equality (Tolstocorova 2013a; 2013b; Tolstokorova 2016). At the same time it was revealed that the social dividends of migrants are gender specific due to the different effect of labor migration on women and men (Tolstokorova 2013a).

The main goalof this work is to study social dividends of migration in health issues from the point of view of the impact of migratory life on the psychophysical and emotional situation of Ukrainian guest workers and their attitude to health issues and healthy life. The practical task is to study gender peculiarities of social dividends earned by Ukrainian migrants abroad.

As an initial theoretical premise, health is understood as a measure of personal human capital, cultural capital, social and financial capital (Taranyuk 2013, Krauchuk, Kawachi, Berkman 2000, Viswanath et al 2006, Becker 2007, Bleakley 2010, O’Mahony, Samek 2016) . This understanding of health provides a basis for interpreting it from the position of nonmonetary theory of the capital by Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu 1986) as a kind of “symbolic capital”, which may give its owners certain social dividends.

This study included the following steps:

  1. Analysis of secondary theoretical sources and review of press materials on the issues of international and Ukrainian labor migration.
  2. Since 2003, we conducted selective participant and non-participant observation of the target group of the study.
  3. In summer 2008, in-depth interviews and 2 focus group discussions were organized with 25 Ukrainian experts on migration, gender and women’s studies, social policy and social work from state research institutions and non-governmental analytical centers, ministries, embassies, non-commercial organizations, state employment centers, etc. During 2007-2014, semi-formalized interviews were conducted with migrants and members of their families in Kherson, Kirovograd and Ternopil regions, in Kiev and Lviv (31 women and 12 men).

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