Human potential in terms of socio-cultural transition: dynamics of literal and educated population of Siberia (1897-2010)

Although cultural and educational potential of the Russian society in the 20th century has been an object of regard in Russian historical studies, there is a free niche for “through”-studying the socio-cultural influences on economic development of Siberia in the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century. The objective of the paper is to reveal the dynamics of Siberian human capital, which reflected the evolution of the role of socio-cultural factors in the economic development of Asian Russia. A comprehensive analysis of materials of population census conducted in 1897 and from 1939 to 2010 shows that the changes in quantitative and qualitative characteristics of Siberian human capital is to be attributed to socio-cultural transition. This process appeared to be a rapid increase of the literacy and education rate, primarily due to development of schooling. In the late 19th - early 21st century the role of the socio-cultural transition in the evolution of the human potential of Siberia radically shifted. In the conditions of domination of traditional society, this process contributed mainly to the intensive formation of literate population. Under establishment of industrial society, this factor had a powerful stimulating effect on expansion of general literacy to young and middle generations of the region inhabitants, as well as widening of the stratum of people having primary and incomplete secondary education. Within the framework of mature industrial society, the development of the socio-cultural transition led to the fact that Siberians having an average and high educational level became a mass phenomenon, and that was one of preconditions for subsequent incorporation of Siberia into modern global information age. By now, educated population has reached more than three fifths of the regional human potential, which stipulates necessity of continuation of he development in modern conditions.