Population Change in the Periphery: Changing Migration Patterns in the Russian North

This article examines changes in the migration system in the Russian North over the two decades since the breakup of the Soviet Union and the beginning of economic reforms using unpublished data from the Federal State Statistics Service of Russia. This is done by computing several measures of migration for selected northern regions: 1) measures of migration efficiency to determine the extent to which migration in the northern regions is redistributing the population; 2) migration transition probabilities to measure changes in the origins and destinations of migrants in the Russian North; and 3) the average distance of moves to determine the effects that increased costs of transportation have on migration. The regions examined in this article include Khanty-Mansi and IamalNenets Autonomous Okrugs, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug and Magadan Oblast', and Murmansk Oblast'. The findings show that as the market has taken hold, regions of economic growth are becoming primary migration destinations for persons migrating both to and from the North.