Migration attitudes of young people in the Murmansk oblast

The problem of retaining and attracting young people is extremely important for peripheral areas of the Russian society. The Murmansk Oblast is one of the regions most rapidly losing population, especially young. Intensive migration processes cause a significant lack of young people. These processes are associated not only with group specificity of the youth (its mobility), but also with the conditions of socialization and self-realization in the region. Migration attitudes and appropriate behavior are indicators of well-being and development potential of any territory. The scientific literature devoted to migration processes pays a lot of attention paid to their results reflected in the statistics. In this study we make an integrated analysis of problems, taking into account not only the objective consequences of migration processes, but also their background. Migration attitudes are understood as subjective factors of the formation of regional mobility, reflecting its potential. The empirical base of the research consists of the regional statistical data for 2009 - 2013, as well as the data of the questionnaire survey conducted by the research laboratory of Murmansk State Humanities University with the author’s participation in spring of2014. The analysis reveals the structure of youth migration by streams, directions and types of settlement, the orientation of various socio-demographic groups of young people on emigration, the subjective reasons for emigration and the factors of outflow and retaining of young people. Migration attitudes of the youth in the Murmansk Oblast are characterized by the dominance of external, primarily Russian interregional territorial mobility, determined by the subjective evaluation of socio-economic conditions in the region.