Migration of young people to regional centers of Russia at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries

On the basis of data for the 1989-2002 and 2003-2010, the migration of young people at the level of cities and areas of 19 Russian regions is analyzed. Migration is estimated by the "age-group shift" for the corresponding periods between censuses which provides more accurate estimates in comparison with the data of current statistics. Migration of young people has an expressed centripetal nature everywhere; their migra- tion rate from the province is higher the farther one goes from regional centers. All regional capitals attracted young people in the period under review which has a positive effect on the age structure of their population, and only large cities could retain young people among their population. Migration of young people from the periphery is sustainable; it depends on the common migration attractiveness of regions and reaches the great- est extent in the East and in the depressed areas of the Center. In small and medium-sized cities on the periph- ery of regions, the outflow of young people almost always reaches the same intensity as in the countryside. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2013. Original Russian Text © N.V. Mkrtchyan, 2013.