Привлекательность центров и вторых городов регионов для внутренних мигрантов в России

Abstract

The article examines the intensity of net intraregional and interregional migration of the population of regional centers and the secondary (by population) cities in 74 regions of Russia between 2012–2016. The information basis of the study is formed by municipalities’ indicators database for the relevant years. The low saturation of the Russian territory with cities should logically lead to the migration attractiveness of the secondary cities in the intraregional migration process, as they should be the important focuses of social and economic life. That should be expressed by a positive net migration coefficient. In fact, this is the case in 42 regions. In other regions, the final balance of intraregional migration of the secondary cities is negative. At the same time, migration can be considered as an indicator of the conditional well-being of the secondary cities both in the context of having their own stable hinterland and from socio-economic perspective. Regional centers are attractive for intraregional migrants almost everywhere. Such consistency is the result of the concentration of financial and other flows and powers in the regions’ capital cities and, regardless of the socio-economic situation, a better quality of life there compared to other municipalities of the same regions. Indicators of interregional migration are more ambiguous: from the standpoint of the net-migration balance not only the second cities of the regions, but also many regional centers are unattractive for interregional migrants. Limited demographic resources and the presence of the two powerful centers of migration attraction at the country level (Moscow and St. Petersburg) do not leave room for interregional migration growth to the most regional centers.