From Marriage to Migration: Analyzing Return Migration, Gender Inequalities and Household Resource Allocation Patterns

In Kyrgyzstan, a country shaped by deep-rooted traditions and high rates of migration, women's lives are often influenced by powerful cultural expectations, economic pressures, and limited choices. My research explores how these forces intersect—particularly through the lens of bride kidnapping, migration, and how families use money and resources. Together, these issues reveal how gender inequality operates in everyday life, and how women navigate both constraint and resilience. This dissertation includes three connected studies. The first examines how the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted international labor migration, especially for Kyrgyz migrants working in Russia. Many returnees lost their jobs and faced hostility or xenophobia, prompting a wave of return migration. Through interviews with returnees, I found that women often returned out of concern for family members and faced greater difficulties reintegrating, including limited employment opportunities and an increased burden of unpaid domestic work. Cultural expectations placed heavier pressures on women to stay home, even when they wanted to seek new opportunities. The second study focuses on the practice of bride kidnapping—known locally as ala kachuu—which continues in parts of Kyrgyzstan despite being illegal. I conducted a comprehensive review of academic studies from the last two decades to understand how and why this practice persists. The findings show that bride kidnapping is most common in rural areas, and it is sustained by poverty, traditional gender roles, and weak legal enforcement. Victims often face social stigma, psychological trauma, and barriers to education or employment. However, efforts to resist the practice are emerging through education, legal awareness, and migration. The third study uses household survey data to explore how gender inequality influences financial decisions within families. I found that families formed through bride kidnapping are more likely to invest in savings, land, and durable goods—often through remittances sent by women who migrated for work. In this way, women's labor, shaped by both cultural pressure and economic need, becomes essential for household survival and growth. Together, these three studies offer new insights into how gender roles, cultural norms, and economic strategies are deeply intertwined. They show that women in Kyrgyzstan face serious challenges—but also that their decisions and mobility have powerful effects on families and communities. This research contributes to broader conversations about gender, migration, and social change in contexts where tradition and modernity continue to collide.