Migration of Specialists with Higher Education in Russia: Assessment of Factors and Modeling of Processes

Internal migration of specialists with higher education has a significant impact on the intellectual capital of the regions. The growing differentiation of the territorial distribution of this most important capital in the conditions of an innovative economy leads to a weakening of interregional ties and has a negative impact on the dynamics of the development of the national economy. In this regard, a study is relevant, the purpose of which would be to assess the factors that determine the migration processes of specialists with higher education in Russia, and to build a migration model. A hypothesis is considered that the migration patterns of highly qualified specialists differ in the context of federal districts, while socio-economic factors are of decisive importance. The analysis showed that migration processes are confined within the federal districts. Only the Central, North-Western and Southern federal districts have a stable positive balance of migration of specialists with higher education, while from the point of view of the study of socio-economic factors of migration, the Central and North-Western ones are of the greatest interest. The analysis also showed that migration patterns differ significantly in the context of federal districts. Thus, migration processes in the regions of the North-Western Federal District are mainly due to the need to improve the quality of life. At the same time, for the Central Federal District, we can talk about a more significant impact of the innovative activity of organizations and the proportion of specialists with higher education as attracting factors. The migration model was built for the North-Western Federal District, which is due to its high attractiveness for the migration of highly qualified specialists from all federal districts, as well as due to the diversity of climatic and socio-economic conditions. The analysis of strategic documents of the regions of the district confirms the adequacy of the migration model of highly qualified specialists obtained based on regression analysis. The donor regions consider the low quality of life as the main reason, and the main direction of migration policy is aimed at improving it.