And the people who are left are the ones who cannot leave.
This is a pretty common pattern: there's a portion of the population that is mobile and can freely move around, and the rest of the population is stuck in place for one reason or another. When Venezuela went through its instability a couple years ago, about 20-30% of the population left [0]. Syria had 30-40% leave [1]. Ukraine had about 15% leave the country, but more were displaced from the warzone as internal refugees.
So when you say that "about one-quarter of Tajikistan's entire population" went to Russia for work, that suggests that economic conditions are at the same general class as 2018 Venezuela or 2012 Syria, where everybody who easily can move has moved. The people that are left really do have nowhere else to go.
This does not make day-to-day life any less bleak, though. Now they still face the same issues, but on top of it they depend on others’ charity for their income. Surely there are cultural differences and family ties make the pill easier to swallow, but still.
> In 2014, Tajikistan was the most-remittance based economy on earth, amounting to almost half of its GDP. The countryside is dotted with half-finished concrete homes which I was told were the long-term retirement plans of Tajiks working abroad; they build their structures for a few months each year over many years or decades using trickles of funds earned from abroad. When the structures are finished, they prepare them to be their permanent homes once they retire from migrant work.
They aren't settling out of the country permanently and I doubt the quality of life as a migrant worker in Russia is spectacular.
Your link suggests this is largely to remove red tape while working in Russia. It does not answer how many are settling long-term. There is of course also this little complication:
> Anecdotal evidence suggests that recent recipients of that status have been prioritized for military mobilization as the Kremlin forges ahead with its offensives against Ukraine.
"While Tajik expatriates have some scant freedom of movement and residency privileges in Russia as compared to peers from most of the world outside the former Soviet Union, they have limited access to accommodation and credit, making settling long-term a complicated proposition.
Migrant laborers also face recurrent costs like payment for their work permits.
Holding Russian citizenship makes many problems go away."
