Regional population development in Russia 1990-2009: trajectories of change and path-dependency

Ilkka Henrik Mäkinen, Södertörn University
Liubov V. Borisova, Södertörn University

The population crisis in Russia is well-documented. Since there large socio-economic inequalities between Russian regions, one would expect to find regional variation in demographic developments as well. This paper sets out to analyse the differences in population change between the regions of the Russian Federation; to identify the “ideal types” of trajectories of regional population change during the past 20 years and to analyse the initial (1990) conditions in the regions in relation to their later development in order to identify path-dependencies in their population change. The data used originates from the Russian statistical agency, Rosstat. Q-analysis is utilised to identify the different trajectories of regional population change during the research period. Next, multinomial logistic regression is applied on the dataset of the initial conditions in relation to the ensuing changes. The results show that, first, there indeed exist clearly identifiable trajectories of regional population change, four major paths could be distinguished. The regression analysis shows the initial conditions do play a role in determining the path region would take in its population development – at least up to a certain time-point in the 1990’s.