SCENARIO

Scenario in 2050

In a few days, Zabel's 61st birthday is coming up.  She has come back to Armenia after spending 15 years in Russia. Her husband is the owner of a prosperous company in Russia with worldwide reach. Zabel would like to help her husband to expand his company to Armenia. Ideally they expect their oldest daughter to take over the company when they will retire. The reason for Zabel to leave Russia is also linked to the deteriorating situation between Russia and European countries, which are not unified as the EU anymore. As she was never able to get Russian citizenship, her legal status will be safer in Armenia, and her daughters will still be able to apply for European visas from Armenia. Additionally, it is easier for her children to study or continue their studies in Armenia as it would be in Russia. As China is the most important nation at the moment, one of Zabel's daughters went there for her studies. Zabel is both excited about the new entrepreneurial challenge, but also nervous about starting her life in Armenia once again. Another daughter of hers is studying business management in Rwanda to help Zabel improving the company after the completion of her studies. She (the daughter) is amazed by the technological innovations she is experiencing in Rwanda and tries to convince her mother to set up the expansion of the company there rather than in Armenia. However, there are doubts that this would be successful as Russian technologies are perceived negatively in Rwanda and the country is much further advanced. 

 

Back casting - how did Zabel get there? What is the development of the drivers at this point and what is the effect on the migration pattern for the persona?

 

1) Decade 2020-30

Zabel joined a European country to improve her livelihood and try to create more stability for herself. However, EU relations crumbled in the 20s and she was forced to leave by the end of the decade due to visa reasons when the EU split. Instead of joining her husband who was still working and living in Russia, she went back to Armenia because one of her daughters got really sick and she needed her family's help.  

 

2) Decade 2030-40

Zabel was not able to get support for her daughter's degrading medical condition. She decided to move to Russia to find assistance there while Zabel's children stayed with her family in Armenia : they were enrolled in school and continued on their studies ; Zabel tried and sent them remittances. 

Russia had improved its medical assistance capacities in the 20s in an effort to limit the number of Covid-19 and other pandemic-related deaths and was by now a leading medical country. Another reason to take that decision was linked to Russia's favourable conditions for skilled workers: Russia was particularly attracting all those that didn't find adequate jobs in Europe anymore. In an attempt to facilitate free movement, Russia was also looking at possibilities to remove nationality-based visa restrictions. However, since Russia was the first country to have found a long-lasting cure to Covid-19, it required all potential workers who came in to be vaccinated and prove it with their "medical passports". 

 

3) Decade 2040-50

Zabel's special engineering skills were not needed anymore (in Russia) because modern technologies replaced her working skills, including through robots. Hence, less human workforce was needed and she started thinking about moving back to Armenia and expand her husband's company there. Also, her unemployment in Russia forced her to expand and reorientate her skills set. Therefore, she needed to take a though decision due to the declining social welfare situation in Russia and her need to support her children's studies abroad.

 

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DRIVERS

Based on the 2 groups' discussion(s) the following four drivers were identified as important megatrends that could positively or negatively affect Zabel's future: Diversifying education and learning, Changing nature of work, Increasing Significance of Migration, Inequalities.

1. Diversifying education and learning

-Zabel's education and field is not relevant in the future. An opportunity for education advanced or move into an adjacent field.

-Positive impacts: help with moving to a new field and increase opportunities (Armenian or Russia)  Negative impacts: Access and could be left behind that leads to no access to employment. Expense, recognition and time requirements. 

-Depending on the new field and where the best opportunities are could impact or lead to economic security. Access to education could influence the location of migration. 

2. Changing nature of work

Positive

+ Zabel's specific engineering skills might be requested in other parts of the world, thereby increasing her value on the global job market and opening up possibilities for her to find a job elsewhere and move;

+ Given her young age, she might be in a position to transfer / update / adapt her skills to a new working environment, which could be helpful either for staying or moving;

+ Changes of the nature of work could allow her more flexibility in working and meeting family requirements at the same time;

+ Furthermore, she might be able to make use of acquired soft skills that could have increased value (i.e. better recognition of unpaid family work also on the job market).

Negative

- Due to the volatile political situation in her country and the decreasing economic situation, work opportunities are rather limited; her freedom of choice is therefore limited as well and she might find herself in a deadlocked/stucked situation; 

- Based on her highly specific and slightly outdated educational background, her acquired skills might not be needed anymore; in order to make a living she might be forced to move to find other income opportunities;

- Her family situation (single mother household) makes her financially dependent on her husband (remittances) and any changes that might impact her husband's working environment.

-This could lead to reduce or remove the need to move at all. She could be a virtual migrant such as being employed online in Russia but living with her family in Armenia.

-Positive impact: Job opportunites for people where they live. Negative impact: work exploitation or off-shoring high paid work to other countries for a lower cost. Increase digital inequalities such as if you only have access to technologies then you can benefit from this type of work.  

-Motivation: If the motivation is family reunification, then it would stay the same. If it is purely economic, she would probably still move.

3. Increasing significance of migration

Positive

+ The increasing relevance of migration could be accompanied by a higher acceptance of the phenomenon itself and pave the way for the understanding that mobility is a part of human life; this could help Zabel's decision to move to Russia to live with her husband and overcome her family's reluctance towards her move;

+ Human mobility could increasingly become a public good that is considered to be open to all and not just a selective privilege of highly educated persons with the right passport;

+ The increasing significant could make societies realise their dependancy on human mobility and exchange of skills, thereby opening up new and more diverse locations; this could increase Zabel's freedom of choice in personal but also professional terms;

+ More human mobility overall could bring prosperity and opportunity locally, thereby allowing Zabel to stay in her place of residence and/or having more choices in case she decides to move voluntarily.

Negative

- Human mobility could be looked at with an even more critical eye, leading to continuous restrictions for visa and travel regimes; this could have a negative impact on Zabel's chances to obtain a visa or an entry/residence permit for Russia;

 - The increased fear of migration in many societies could create a hostile environment for Zabel in case she decided to move to Russia;

- More mobility could go along with higher competition on the global job market, thereby decreasing Zabel's chances to find a job and make a decent living for her family; it could also make her husband's work profile irrelevant with him losing his job and income as a consequence;

- The Covid-19 pandemic could be considered as proof that human mobility bears mainly negative consequences and should be restricted even more; it could be argued that digital technologies can replace migration to a large extent and physical encounters are not necessary anymore; Zabel's personal live could be highly affected by that as it limits her options considerably.

 

4. Inequality

-Zabel has been impacted by inequality on many levels such as gender, difference between countries, economic opportunities, rural v urban settings and digital skills or literacy

-Positive impacts: could decrease by moving to a big city such as childcare access and opportunities Negative impacts: this could impact support system regarding childcare and the cost in a larger city could be higher.

-Motivation: Differences of opportunties between countries, retirement options, family and network and opportunites for children.