Value-Based Migration to Russia

The article describes a new migration phenomenon – the resettlement of Western countries’ residents to Russia, motivated by the rejection of destructive left-liberal ideological attitudes imposed there and the desire to implement traditional spiritual and moral values. This process is called value-based migration. While maintaining the key importance of the objective socio-economic, political and environmental causes of human movement in the theory of migration, subjective and psychological factors are increasingly highlighted. According to modern concepts of migration motivation, a person moves following his desire to fully implement his values. These values are both material, related to improving the income, well-being, status, etc., and increasingly more non-material ones are becoming defining, in particular traditional spiritual and moral ones, coupled with attitudes to lead a ‘right’ life in a new place according to the canons of morality, a safe life in all its forms and in close social environment that approves a person’s identity. In Russia there is a clash of social challenges associated, on the one hand, with increased depopulation, labor shortages and, consequently, the need to attract foreign labor for the economy, and, on the other hand, with increased ethnic tensions between the locals and foreign-born ones. Under such circumstances the value-based flow, perhaps more than any other flow, meets the interests of the host society. It is remaining still small, but it’s growing rapidly and has considerable potential. Active measures of state support and activities of volunteer and other non-governmental organizations should facilitate the fuller realization of this potential. The qualitative characteristics of this flow are of special importance: the majority of such migrants are people of active working age, with two or more children, who have obtained higher education or secondary vocational diploma, have in-demand jobs, are fluent or well-versed in Russian, and are orthodox Christians. The inflow of such people, who integrate into the local socio-cultural environment, can contribute to alleviating the severity of demographic problems, reducing labor shortages and contributing to the economic development of the country.