The current state of demographic potential and opportunities for regional development, with the increasing role of the eastern regions of Russia possessing huge natural resources, are considered. With the population of the Far East continuing to decline for many years, their development becomes problematic. The interrelation of the current trends in the development of the demographic potential of the Far Eastern region and attracted investments designed to ensure sustainable growth rates of the regional economy is analyzed. Migrants leaving the region outnumber the number arriving in the territory. The interrelation of demographic potential and the implementation of large-scale economic development projects are poorly interconnected. The low standard of living of the population makes the vast territory not attractive for migrants
Far East, demographic potential, investments, migration factors
Currently, much attention in research is paid to the dynamic development of economic and social factors, of which the most important are the trends emerging under the influence of state policy. With the beginning of economic reforms, the Far Eastern region lost its priorities in the social sphere, lost its attractiveness for migrants, and the population living in the region reacted by changing their migration and reproductive behavior. The decline in the permanent population has persisted in the Far East for almost thirty years. At the beginning of 2019, 6182.7 thousand people lived in the region (with the Trans-Baikal Territory and the Republic of Buryatia - 8235.07 thousand people) [5]. Against the background of the positive dynamics of natural reproduction of the population in all Far Eastern regions, a steady migration decline of the population remains, although its intensity decreases.
The compensating factor of population decline is natural growth. A decrease in the birth rate and an increase in mortality rates is a legitimate response to the modernization of society. From 2005 onwards, its values became positive in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, with subsequent years positive dynamics in other subjects of the Far East [1, 7]. However, by now (2020), natural growth has been maintained in the Buryatia River, the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, and the Sakha River (Yakutia).
The negative balance of migration is completely formed due to interregional migration flows. The most intensive migration outflow is observed in the northern regions. The most mobile is the population of working age, with the greatest migration activity at the age of 25-29 years (36,5 %) [2, 4]. Among the migrants who have left, the predominance of persons with secondary general education is especially noticeable, which every fifth migrant has, and every fourteenth with secondary special education. Among the arrivals, there is a decrease in the proportion of people younger than working age throughout the territory. This indicates that there are still few grounds for improving the qualitative characteristics of the population in the region. In other words, there is a tendency not just to decrease the population, but to replace the population with a high level of capitalization of the population with a lower social status.
The socio-economic situation and the deterioration of the quality of life in comparison with other Russian regions are a decisive factor in the migration orientations of the population of the Far East. The desire to leave their city and region is also demonstrated by the youth of the Far East. During the 2010s, the Far East "gave" to the Russian regions almost 5.3 times more migrants (596.9 thousand people) than it received from the CIS countries – only 112.7 thousand people. [1, 7]. In essence, the Far East is a donor of population and labor resources for the Russian federal districts, while none of them gives a positive balance in exchange with the Far East.
Differences in the participation of the population in spatial mobility leads not only to a change in the population, but also to the transformation of the gender and age structure of the population in the receiving and giving territories. By the end of the first decade of the XXI century, there is a significant aging of the population in the age structure. The increase in older persons observed in the Far East as a whole is especially intense in the northern regions [3]. For the most part, Moscow and the Moscow Region and the subjects of the central district are at the forefront of the influx of those leaving the northern and eastern regions. There is a direct influence of social reasons: large-scale housing construction, capital social packages, better and affordable medical care, expanded opportunities for leisure and domestic well-being, the effect of social cards of a metropolitan resident, the possibility of seasonal migration in the summer to the regions of suburban development, etc.
The current socio-economic situation and living conditions in the Far Eastern Federal District are the main factor in the formation of migration orientations of the population. Gradually, there was a threat of changes in the future of the national, sexual and social composition of the population of the region. There are such problems as the growth of social tension, lack of housing and infrastructure. The main socio-demographic threat is the outflow from the district of the qualified part of the labor potential in active working age. At the same time, the territory is filled with low-skilled, not always ready to communicate people, among whom most do not have the necessary professional skills, and sometimes with primary education. There is also a job for such migrants because for many subjects of the federation there are 3-4 vacancies for every unemployed person. As a rule, these are vacancies in the field of construction, agriculture, housing and communal services, transport. For a long time, the level of education of migrants who left was higher than that of those who arrived. The situation is changing by the early 2020s. In all regions of the Federation, the arrival of persons, especially those with higher education, becomes a priority over the departure.
In the short term, neither an increase in the retirement age nor an increase in labor productivity will be able to compensate for the depopulation of the population. The Far East is suffering large population losses due to interregional exchange, and it is possible to reverse this trend only by bridging the gap between nominal and real incomes of the population. All this indicates the need for the formation of additional measures to support the population, conditions for attracting migrants, improving the quality of medical care and the development of social infrastructure, increasing income [8].
One of the main factors of slow socio-economic development is determined by the resource orientation of the development of the territory of the region. Since 2006, since the announcement of the priority of development to the east, the inflow of investments has been provided by federal investments, but this cannot stop the outflow of the population. The proclaimed policy of "turning to the east" has made more substantial support from the federal budget to the Far Eastern subjects, especially in the extraction and development of natural resources, but not in support of the population living here, Fig. 1.
Fig. 1. Investments in the Far East and migration results
The system of distribution of income received from this does not provide a fair distribution of earned funds. The region credits one hundred percent of the fees to the federal budget, and returns significantly less from the listed financial funds. Preferences, for example, in the form of territories of advanced development, free economic zones (Nakhodka, Greater Vladivostok, in the Jewish Autonomous Region (EVA), in the Magadan Region, in the Vanino-Sovgavan industrial and transport hub of the Khabarovsk Territory), did not bring success to the region, but only benefits to business, with a reorientation from domestic to foreign markets. Investors, mostly foreign, practice investing in the region in order to get rent and withdraw it. Exports from the regions of the Far East (2019) amounted to $28,200.7 million, and imports – $ 8,014.07 million. It is possible to achieve high growth rates of the gross regional product if we keep a constant, annually high increase in public investment, which will be able to ensure a high growth rate with certain multipliers. It is legitimate to conclude that it is necessary to change management methods, restore the processing of extracted raw materials to obtain final products, revive industrial enterprises, the construction industry, etc.
The investment programs currently proposed have inherited many socio-economic problems that cannot be solved in the region. First of all, there is a weak concern for people living in the region. The distance between neighboring Far Eastern settlements sometimes exceeds 100 km, with irregular transport accessibility, in many cases only by air transport, cause high living costs for the population. For example, it is cheaper to fly from Magadan to Vladivostok or Krasnoyarsk via Moscow than by direct flights. Since 2006, the task of making life better in the Far East than in the central regions has not been fulfilled due to the use of Moscow's economic criteria of thought, and this does not work on the periphery. Moscow is a "different country", where the average salary of a teacher, for example, is 110 thousand rubles, and in the south of the Far East – 40 thousand rubles [5]. The same situation is with the northern territories of the whole country. Given the disparity in the development of the regions, the number of potential migrants cannot increase at the expense of those people who were born outside the Far East. We need a different approach to the development of the periphery, which is important in all respects. Following the asymmetry in the standard of living, the difference in the mentalities of the European and Far Eastern population is not taken into account. Given the weakness of the current Russian state, the main direction of the development of the Far Eastern territories may be to encourage the unorganized resettlement of migrants who are able to create jobs for themselves. It is also useful to recall the positive experience of settling the south of the Far East in previous periods of development [9].
Regional disparities in the quality of life violate the unity of the economic space of the state, limit social progress, lead to the complication of the problem of interregional migration, interregional exchange, the emergence of the threat of separatism [8]. The investment programs currently proposed have inherited many socio-economic problems that cannot be solved in the region. They need their own potential. First of all, we care about the people living in the region. There is a need to update labor policy, the practice of social and labor relations in order to increase labor efficiency, strengthen social justice in the economy and society. To do this, it is necessary to strengthen social security in the field of employment, including reducing the wage gap and poverty; the development of a system of jobs based on the structural reorientation of the economy from raw materials to manufacturing industries, as well as the high-tech sector. There have been changes in the sphere of social and labor relations caused by informatization, the spread of knowledge and their universal interdependence, globalization processes, and increasing economic uncertainty. Diversification and flexibility of the labor market segment is urgently needed under the influence of the networking of the economy, STP, the formation of new non-standard forms of employment and new types of labor relations (individualization); new models of labor pricing, pension system and pension insurance as elements of social security in wages.
Conclusion. Before taking care of present and future migrants who would like to come to the Far East for residence, you need to take care of those who live here and will continue to live. After the optimization of the education and medical care system, access to such services turned out to be limited due to their remoteness from small settlements. The critical condition of housing and communal facilities, the low quality of life of the indigenous population, the sharp polarization of income by industry within the region, do not contribute to the influx of migrants. All this leads to adverse consequences in the form of negative demographic indicators, the outflow of highly qualified labor resources, the lack of a large-scale and effective personnel training system, an imbalance between the supply and demand of labor resources in territorial and professional terms.
From the point of view of solving demographic problems, social guarantees (in employment, health preservation, education) for people living in the region can become an incentive to increase the security of the population. A more important and necessary task may be to solve the issues of increasing the incomes of Far Easterners and social guarantees of employment.
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