According to the definition, internal migration is the movement of people within a country from one region to another. As a rule, this flow is caused by economic and social reasons. Internal displacement is the opposite of external displacement, where residents leave their country and settle abroad.
General trends
Urbanization is a key driver of internal migration worldwide. The scale of the consequences of urban growth is so great that some researchers refer to this process as the "great migration of the peoples of the 20th century." In search of a better life, the villagers are rapidly leaving their native villages. This process also applies to Russia. Its tendencies will be discussed below. As for most developed countries, their urbanization has stopped at around 80%. That is, four out of five citizens of Germany or the United States live in cities.
In countries where populations are small or unevenly dense, internal migration takes the form of settling in new areas. Human history knows many such examples. In Canada, the USA, Brazil and China, the population was at first concentrated in the eastern regions. When the resources of those places began to run out, people naturallywent to explore the western provinces.
History of internal migration in Russia
In every historical era, internal migration in Russia had its own specific features, while always remaining a sustainable process. In the IX-XII centuries. Slavs settled in the basin of the Upper Volga. Migration was directed to the north and northeast. Until the second half of the 19th century, it was small in scale, as it was held back by serfdom in the countryside.
Colonization affected the European north, as well as the Urals, where the resettlement took on a "mining" character. From the Lower Volga region, Russians migrated south to Novorossia and the Caucasus. Large-scale economic development of Siberia began only in the middle of the 19th century. In Soviet times, the eastern direction became the main one. In a planned economy, people were sent to remote areas where new cities or roads were to be built. In the 1930s forced Stalinist industrialization began. Together with collectivization, it pushed many millions of citizens of the USSR out of the countryside. Also, the internal migration of the population was caused by the forced deportations of entire peoples (Germans, Chechens, Ingush, etc.).
Modernity
In modern Russia, internal migration manifests itself in several trends. First of all, it is visible in the division of the population into rural and urban. This ratio determines the degree of urbanization of the country. Today, 73% of Russians live in cities, and 27% live in villages. Exactly the same figures were during the last census in the Soviet Union in 1989. At the same time, the number of villages increased by more than 2,000, but the number of rural settlements with at least 6,000 people has halved. Such disappointing statistics suggests that by the end of the 90s. internal migration has led to the risk of disappearance of more than 20% of the villages. Today the indicators are more encouraging.
In Russia, there are two types of urban centers - urban-type settlements and cities. How are they defined? According to the criteria, a settlement is recognized as urban if the share of residents employed in agriculture does not exceed 15%. There is another barrier as well. The city must have at least 12,000 inhabitants. If internal migration leads to a decrease in population and a fall below this bar, the status of the settlement can be changed.
Magnets and outskirts
The Russian population is extremely unevenly distributed over the vast territory of the country. Most of it is concentrated in the Central, Volga and Southern federal districts (26%, 22% and 16% respectively). At the same time, very few people live in the Far East (only 4%). But however skewed the numbers may be, internal migration is a constant ongoing process. Over the past year, 1.7 million people took part in movements around the country. That's 1.2% of the country's population.
The main "magnet" where internal migration of the Russian Federation leads is Moscow and its satellite cities. Growthobserved in St. Petersburg with the Leningrad region. The two capitals are attractive as employment centers. Almost all other regions of the country are experiencing a migration decline (more people leave there than arrive there).
Regional dynamics
In the Volga Federal District, the largest migration increase is observed in Tatarstan, in the South - in the Krasnodar Territory. In the Urals, positive figures are observed only in the Sverdlovsk region. The population goes there from the Siberian and Far Eastern regions, where there is a migration decline everywhere. This process has been going on for decades.
Internal migration is the main cause of population decline in the Siberian Federal District, which in exchange with other regions for 2000-2008. lost 244 thousand inhabitants. The numbers leave no doubt. For example, in the Altai Territory alone, over the same period, the decline was 64,000 people. And only two regions in this district are distinguished by a small migration gain - these are the Tomsk and Novosibirsk regions.
Far East
The Far East has lost more than other residents in recent years. Both external and internal migration work for this. But it was the movement of citizens to other regions of their native country that led to the loss of 187,000 people over the past ten years. Most people leave Yakutia, Chukotka and the Magadan region.
The statistics of the Far East is logical in a certain sense. This region is located at the opposite end of the country from the capital. Manyits inhabitants leave precisely for Moscow in order to realize themselves and forget about isolation. Living in the Far East, people spend gigantic sums of money on occasional trips or flights to the West. Sometimes round-trip tickets can cost the entire salary. All this leads to the fact that internal migration is increasing and expanding. Countries with a vast territory, like air, need an accessible transport infrastructure. Its creation and timely modernization is the most important challenge for modern Russia.
Influence of economy and climate
The primary factors determining the nature of internal migration are economic factors. The Russian bias arose due to the uneven level of socio-economic development of the country's regions. As a result, there was a differentiation of territories in terms of quality and standard of living. In remote and border areas, they are too low compared to the capitals, which means they are unattractive for the population.
For the vast territory of Russia, the natural and climatic factor is also characteristic. If conditional Belgium is homogeneous in terms of its temperature indicators, then in the case of the Russian Federation, everything is much more complicated. A more livable and attractive climate draws people south and into the center of the country. Many northern cities arose in the Soviet era thanks to the system of orders and all kinds of shock construction projects. In a free market, people born in these regions tend to leave them.
Social and military factors
The third group of factors issocial, which are expressed in historical and family ties. They are a common cause of the so-called. "return migration". Residents of the eastern and northern regions, leaving for Moscow, often return home, because they still have family, relatives and friends there.
Another group of factors is the military threat. Armed conflicts force people to leave their homes and settle in safe regions, away from the seat of bloodshed. In Russia, this factor was of great importance in the 1990s, when a fierce war continued for several years in the North Caucasus, and primarily in Chechnya.
Prospects
The development of internal migration is hampered by uneven housing prices and the poor development of the housing market in the regions. To solve this problem, state support and financing of problem areas, republics and territories is necessary. The regions need to increase the income of the working population, additional jobs, increase the revenue side of the budget, and reduce the need for budget financing.
Other measures will be favorable. The revival of internal migration is facilitated by a decrease in the negative impact of industry on the environment, as well as an improvement in the demographic situation.
