Report - UNDP Russia

Russia to carry out social sector reform in 2007and took first place in a rating by the Ministry ofRegional Development for governmentefficiency, with special commendation foreliminating ‘inefficient social spending’.Unfortunately, efficiency improvements in socialspending are equated by federal authorities and(in many cases) regional governments withspending less budget money, although socialmodernization depends on steady growth ofgovernment investments in the most efficienthuman development instruments.2.3. Social situation:achievements and problemsRegions specializing in fuel and energyproduction are scattered across the country andtheir social development depends on differingfactors and specifics. Nevertheless, they can besensibly divided into three groups:• Sparsely populated northern regions withsingle-industry oil & gas economies (Khanty-Mansi, Yamal-Nenets and NenetsAutonomous Districts);• Regions of European part of Russia (most ofthem located in the Volga Federal District)with a longer history of oil & gas extraction,less dependence on fuel & energy, and withbigger cities and higher population density;• Other northern and eastern regions of thecountry, including coal-mining regions,whose social and demographic featuresplace them between the above two groups(Komi Republic, Krasnoyarsk Territory,Sakhalin Region etc.).The demographic situation in regionsdepends on when their industrialization began,and on the duration and scale of migratory flows.Autonomous districts of the north where oil &gas exploration began relatively recently are themost prosperous. Mass migration in the 1970sand 1980s increased population of these areasby 10 times, and the newcomers were mainlyyoung people. There was a second wave ofmigration, on a much smaller scale, in the 1990s,drawn by relatively high wages in the northernoil & gas producing regions. Thanks to theiryoung population the Khanty-Mansi and Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Districts still enjoyrelatively high natural population growth (8-9per 1000 in 2007–2008). The NenetsAutonomous District also has positive naturalpopulation growth (3 per 1000). This contrastswith overall excess of mortality overreproduction in Russia since the early 1990s. Alsothere is a large share of people of working age(over 70%) in the northern oil & gas productionareas, and the share of children (20%) greatlyexceeds the share of the elderly (7-12%).In the regions of the Volga FederalDistrict and southern Siberia large-scaleindustrialization started in the middle of the lastcentury, so their populations have already aged,though not as dramatically as in the Central andNorth-Western parts of Russia. The demographicsituation in older oil & gas producing regions andin the major coal mining regions of southernSiberia is similar to the national average, both asconcerns natural loss of population (2-3 per 1000)and in the age structure (62-63% of people are ofworking age, 16-18% are children and youngpeople, and 18-22% are senior citizens).The demographic advantages ofnorthern autonomous regions will not lastforever. Since the mid–2000s they have beenexperiencing a migratory outflow. The outflowwas small at the outset, but in 2008 it soared by10 times to 77 per 10,000 population in theYamal-Nenets Autonomous District andreached 36 per 10,000 in the Nenets District.Only the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Districtshowed some migration increase in 2007–2008,when oil prices were at their peak. But thistrend is unlikely to last, since the period ofsuper-profits from oil is now over and thepresent crisis does not favor creation of newjobs. Without input from immigration thepopulation of Russia’s northern areas will age,and the regions will face the samedemographic problems, two generations intothe future, as now face fuel & energy regionswhere industrialization began earlier.34 National Human Development Report in the Russian Federation 2009