Migrant workers in labour markets of Russian western borderlands
| Published date | 01 October 2021 |
| Author | Anna V. Lialina |
| Date | 01 October 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12801 |
82
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International Migration. 2021;59:82–98.
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/imig
1 | INTRODUCTION
Regions with a state b order must intuitively have gr eat potential for attrac ting foreign migrant workers a ccording
to the Gravit y model. And the Russian re gions along the western b order of the country are di stinguished by their
proximity t o the former repu blics of the USSR . They have histor ically close tie s with the Russian border regions.
Moreover, the proximi ty of foreign EU countrie s realizes in internationa l business in these terr itories that engage
foreign migra nts with purpose s to work. At the same time, the se curity of these territories under modern condi-
tions is threatened by the country 's entry into the period of geopolitica l and geoecon omic turbulence after the
well-known event s in Ukraine in 2014 (Fedorov, 2019:16).
Received: 5 Oc tober 2019
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Revised: 31 July 202 0
|
Accepted: 30 Oc tober 2020
DOI: 10.1111/imig.12801
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Migrant workers in labour markets of Russian
western borderlands
Anna V. Lialina
© 2020 The Autho rs. Internation al Migration © 2020 IO M
Center for Soc io-Economic Develo pment of
the Region, Im manuel Kant Balti c Federal
University, Kaliningrad, Russia
Correspondence
Anna V. Lialina, Ce nter for Socio-Econo mic
Developmen t of the Region, Immanu el Kant
Baltic Feder al University, 14 A. Nev skogo
St., 236041 Kal iningrad, Russia .
Email: anuta-mazova@mail.ru
Funding information
Russian Scien ce Foundation, Gr ant/Award
Number: 18-17-00112
Abstract
International labour m igration has a subst antial impact
on the devel opment of the labour market. T he articl e
presents the typolog y of the Russian western border
regions by the s ensitivity to so cial migr ation risk s for
their labour markets. More than half of these regions are
sensitive to the risks of labour force marginalization and
wage dumping. Lab our markets with a signific ant share
of foreign migrant workers, that is in St. P etersburg, the
Nenetsky autonomous area, Leningrad and Kalining rad
regions, turned out to be the most sensi tive to the mani-
festation of risks. The pressure of foreign migrant work-
ers on the unemployed and native part-time workers
here is considerable with migrant earnings rea ching up
to 48.5% of the regiona l average. But these social ris ks
are unlikel y to materialize now since the labour market
tension here is low. The least exposed areas are the city
of Sevastopol and the Re public of Crimea.
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MIGRANT WO RKERS IN LABOU R MARKETS OF RUSSI AN WESTERN BORDE RLANDS
Fedorov (2 018) notes that Rus sian Western bo rderlands (RW B) include 6 regi ons with only la nd boundarie s, 7
regions with b oth land and mariti me borders, and 3 regions with only mar itime borders (Fig ure 1). St. Petersburg
does not have state border but “compri ses an integrated socio-economic sy stem with the Leningrad region, whic h
is a borderland ” (Fedorov, 2018:120). That is why we identif y it as a borderland.
The regi ons of RWB annually ta ke about 20 % of foreign migrant wor kers in th e country (Rosstat, 2019).
Clearly, t he major re cipients are the regions with the largest la bour markets. In recent years, St . Petersburg
has be en attract ing about 200-220 tho usand foreign migrant workers annual ly. That is 12.0%-13.0% of the
total fore ign migrants wh o received work pe rmits and patent s in Russia annua lly. The neighbour ing Leningrad
region takes 3. 0%-3.5% of the t otal amount . However, the asse ssment of the regional lab our market s’ de-
pendency on foreign migrant workers shows that the share of foreign workers on local labour markets is also
incre ased in th e Kalini ngrad re gion, the Nenets ky auton omous are a (AA), the Kras nodar te rritor y (Figure 2 ). In
2010, in four of the 17 border entit ies, the foreig n-born made up over 3.0% of the total employed popula tion,
which was higher than the Russia n average. Shall be noted that this number includ es only those legally coming,
living and working in Russia. In the Smolensk region and the Krasn odar territor y, the fore ign migrant work-
force share was comparable to the Russian avera ge. However, by 2017, this share h as significantly decreased
in most R ussian regio ns. In the Ne netsky A A, it plumm eted down to 1 .8% from 7.0%, i n the Kalini ngrad regio n
it fell to 2. 2% from 3.0%. T he only areas seein g its growth were the Leningrad reg ion and St. Petersb urg. The
vast maj ority of bor der regions f ail to fully ex ploit the pot ential of inter national lab our migrati on (ILM) in the ir
labour market s.
Over the past 6 years, lab our demand in the over whelming ma jority of regions of RWB, as well as in th e
country as a who le, has gro wn. The re ason behind it is t he need to ensure sus tainable econ omic growth given
the emer ging shortage of domestic labour resour ces. While th e most develop ed labour ma rkets (St. Pete rsburg
and the Leni ngrad region) can pa rtially satisf y this demand due to t he influx of workfo rce from the neighbou ring
territories , for the least d eveloped ones (espe cially the Kalinin grad region being “separated” from th e rest of the
country) the is sue of attracting add itional labour resource s has come to the forefront.
FIGURE 1Regions of RWB
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