A Study of the Labor Force in the Eastern Siberia

Abstract

About in last twenty years, geography of population has been developed in the Soviet Union. At the biginning, it started from the geographical study of cities and then has extended to that of rural settlement, but it was backward to study the internal migration of population relating the location of production till the most recent period.In last a few years, this subject began to be taken up and the study on the migration of population which is connected with Siberian exploitation was published by a few writers. On the basis of these treatises and other materials, this report considered the migration of population and the problems between labor force and production in the Eastern Siberia.As a result of the lack of labor caused by economic development in Siberia, many people has flowed into this region from western parts of the Soviet Union. But at the same time, we observed the tendency that population has been flowing out of eastern parts (espesially in Siberia) to western parts in the Soviet Union. This is brought about by severe natural conditions (paticularly climate condition) and the low standard of living in Eastern parts in comparison with that of westernparts in the Soviet Union. Consequently, labor is not settled in this region and the Eastern Siberia is worried about remarkable migration of population in spite of the lack of labor force.On the other haud, in the European Russia, the Caucasia and the Central Asia of the Soviet Union, there are surplus labor forces in the branch of agriculture and middle and small cities. In addition, in the Eastern Siberia we can recognize the insufficient use of labor force, especially women labors.From such a situation, in the U.S.S.R. paticular attention should be focused on the distributive plan of labor force viewed from all over the country in order to plan further economic development, though there is no doubt to consider material incentives to induce migration of population. At the same time, in the Eastern Siberia which has areas with very different natural and socio-economical conditions, they need to make the distributive plan of population considerring the differences between various areas. But now these considerations seem to be still insufficient.Generally, in the present Soviet Union geografy of population is defined as special branch of economic geography and then as special branch whichi sdifferent from other branches of economic geography, since it includes “non productive branches which belong to the consumer's side of social production process” (Pokshishevskii). From such a point, there is an opinion to make population geography independent from economic geography and divide geography into three branches: physical, economic and population geography. So, after this, the geographical studies on the migration of population and the distribution of population appears to be given with their studies from more broad scope than ever.