Rural areas population’ migration factors in the European part of the Russian Arctic

The study of migration remains relevant, despite the presence of a wide range of papers by authors from Russia and other countries on the subject. The features of migration processes, in particular migration factors, in rural areas of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation are of the greatest interest due to the current accumulation of sufficient amount of data for analysis. The article considers seven municipalities of the European part of the Russian Arctic and empirically determines statistically significant migration factors through correlation analysis. Data on 15 indicators were collected from 2008 to 2021. We reveal that the most significant migration factors are the development of education, the situation regarding transport links, food and financial security of the population, and housing provision. At the same time, the combination of statistically significant factors is unique for each individual municipal entity. The thesis, widespread in the migration theory, about the greater influence of economic factors on the dynamics of migration was only partially confirmed in the case of the rural areas under consideration. It was found that individual indicators, such as agricultural production and employment, generally do not affect migration decline (increase), and the established relationship with such an indicator as wage level cannot be interpreted unambiguously. With the growth of labor incomes, the outflow of rural residents from their native areas reduces, but does not disappear completely. In turn, the increase in nominal wages is to a large extent a reflection of the inflationary effect; therefore, it cannot be an effective mechanism for retaining the rural population.