Almost all Russia's population growth caused by migration

After a slight decline in 2015, migration growth rebounded in Russia. Now it is returning to the figures of recent years, that is, 250-300 thousand. Senior researcher of the Institute of the Social Analysis and Forecasting Institute at RANEPA, Julia Florinskaya, said that the migration gain recovered at the expense of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, but Ukraine has been a major donor for two years, providing more than half of migration gain.

As for the role of migration gain in Russia's population, according to Florinskaya, virtually all population growth is caused by migration. The natural increase observed since 2013 is very little, and besides it is coming to an end. The main increase in the permanent population in Russia is formed by migrants.

The proportion of the working population in Russia decreases by nearly a million people per year, and even those migrants who move for permanent residence compensate not more than 15% of this decrease. The rest of it is compensated by temporary migrant workers.

With regard to internal migration in Russia, according to Yulia Florinskaya, the number of movements with changing the country of registration is slightly more than 4 million people now. This is the average European level. "Three million people who work in another region without moving of their families must be counted. They are internal migrants who change location to work. In general, it is about 7 million. This is not a low mobility," the expert believes.

With regard to the centers of gravity for both internal and international migrants, they remain the same. "We have very few of the development points in the country, primarily, these are the two agglomerations - Moscow and the Moscow region, St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region, the Krasnodar region, the Tyumen region, Crimea and Sevastopol, the Novosibirsk region, Kaliningrad and the Voronezh region. On the whole, international migration smoothes population losses in many regions, but nevertheless, the majority of Russian regions is losing population in the Volga, the North Caucasus, the Siberian and Far East districts," the expert said.

However, according to her, there will be less decline this year, "just because everyone already left, and they have nowhere to go, because the level of development is the same everywhere now during a crisis."