EDUCATIONAL AND LINGUISTIC COMPONENTS OF HUMAN CAPITAL IN THE ALTAY TERRITORY: ACTUAL STATE AND STRUCTURAL DETERMINANTS

Abstract

Regions of Russia are not only highly differentiated by their socio-economic position, but also differ by efficiency of regional policy aimed at using human capital for regional development. Many border regions, especially situated in the Eastern part of Russia and having agricultural character of economy, are more vulnerable due to their natural depopulation and great migration outflows. Education and health are two most important components of the human capital, and this article is focused on the second part, analyzed through gender, territorial and generational inequalities and their impacts on the level of satisfaction by material position on the materials of the sociological survey, conducted in the Altay territory in 2020 (n = 573, respondents’ age from 18 to 70 years). The analysis shows that despite general significance of education and its high return, educational trajectories and economic perspectives of using education differ significantly in socio-demographic and status groups. Linguistic competencies are poorly developed and practically remain unclaimed, the language proficiency works only in pair with other educational and professional achievements.