Commuting in Russia: scale and consequences

Abstract

The article presents the scale of such a phenomenon as commuting according to the data of the All-Russian Population Census 2020 and Labor Force Sample Survey by Rosstat. The authors examined and systematized the consequences of commuting, which can be represented at three levels: at the level of territory, employer and employee, which can have both negative and positive impacts. For the recipient territory, commuting migrants become a source of labor resources and tax revenue that can be assessed positively. Increase in the burden on the transport infrastructure, the environment, and inaccuracies in assessing the demographic potential can be considered as conditionally negative. At the level of the employer, commuting solves stuffing problems; commuting migrants do not have a special status, so the employer may bear the risks of violating labor discipline, which are regulated in a general manner. With regard to the level of worker, assessment of the consequences depends on the life context, which determines the balance of advantages and costs of such an employment strategy, namely: wage size, position and status, duration of movement and distance to work, family circumstances, necessary or voluntary character of trips. In the final part of the article, the authors present a methodology for assessing the economic consequences of long-distance commuting for Russian regions.