National Migration Policy as a Principle for Economic System Structuring in the Modern States: The Case of Russia

Introduction

International migration of the population refers to the number of large-scale, global and increasingly developing social processes of modernity. According to assessments of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), five years ago the number and in recent years they are reaching the double level. In recent decades, at the general background of intensification of cross-country human flows the concentration of migrants to developed countries has increased. For the last fifty years, the share of these countries in the world number of migrants has increased from 40 up to 48%, while the share of foreign origin residents in their population has increased from 3,4 up to 10,3% (Andrienko & Guriev, 2004). Developed states, “giving” to other countries only a small part of their population, are the largest recipients of migrants. Therefore, immigration, understood in the broad sense of this word as the inflow and “accumulation” of the population of foreign origin, has a much more important significance for developed countries as compared to other migration flows: emigration of their citizens, return and secondary migration of people from other countries.

The scale and sustainability of immigration determine the importance and the structural nature of its role in the economy of the host societies. However, the economic consequences of immigration in developed countries are mixed. One can see in it a factor contributing both to employment and unemployment increase of local population, the replenishment of the state Treasury and its overloading by additional social expenditures, etc. On the one hand emphasizing the migration contribution to the increase in labor resources and strengthening of innovative capacity, required for dynamic economic development, and, on the other hand, its connection with strengthening of terrorist threats and ethnic conflicts, creating social and political risks of economic agents’ activity, give to the discussion a particular acuteness. In the world crisis conditions, when xenophobia is increasing, which is the subject of speculation for extremist and other anti-immigration minded political forces, public opinion towards immigrants is extremely contradictory. According to the data of Eurobarometer, last year only 44% of respondents, residents of EU, believed that immigration contributes to the development of their countries significantly, while 47% of people rejected this fact categorically. The significance and diversity of the modern role of immigration in economies of developed countries, the presence of different, occasionally diametrically opposite assessments determine the relevance of its comprehensive and balanced analysis, and the need for research to identify the positive experience, different approaches and activities of these states, aimed at strengthening of the positive consequences of immigration and weakening of the negative ones.

Modern demographic situation in Russia is ambiguous and is characterized by the severity and intensity, caused by preceding the development challenges of the age and sex structure, complexity of movement types and the mode of reproduction of the country’s population. In recent years there has been a significant increase in the number of supporters of the extreme pessimism theory concerning the demographic processes in Russia. In the public consciousness the idea about the hopelessness of the situation and the inability of the country's transition to optimal demographic development is actively being formed. Some scientists consider that, on the one hand, it is necessary to accept the fact of demographic degradation as something inevitable and unchangeable and, on the other hand, they rely not on the growth and development of the internal demographic resources, but only on immigration. Today Russia needs to take into account the positive “immigration experience” of developed countries in order to build an intelligent policy of economic development of its subjects, considering the scale of the country, population, ethnic peculiarities of its regions.