To the City or to the Suburbs: What Russians Choose at Different Stages of Life Course?

Migration between large cities and their suburbs is considered from the perspective of two conceptual approaches: models of urban development and urban agglomeration development; life course concept. Research objectives come down to, firstly, analyzing the migration flow of the population between large cities and suburbs, and secondly, to identifying its age-related characteristics and assessing the applicability of migration models described using life course concepts to Russian realities. Individual depersonalized data on internal long-term migration of the population in Russia for 2011–2020 was used, which makes it possible to detail the directions of migration and identify different age groups of migrants. 137 Russian cities with a population of over 100 thous. people were considered as large cities; the suburbs included territories formed around cities of a given size at a certain distance from them (20–100 km depending on the population of the city). An indicator of migration efficiency is analyzed, which makes it possible to evaluate not only the directions of flow, but also its effectiveness. The results obtained showed that every year large cities lose population in exchange with suburbs on average of about 50 thous. people. Almost all of these losses occur in the surrounding suburbs. Distant suburbs are losing population in migration exchanges with the centers. High efficiency of migration is recorded between the centers and their nearby suburbs. Without identifying individual age groups, of the 25 migration directions considered, 16 are directed towards the suburbs, and only 9 towards large cities; these flows are also characterized by lower efficiency. The analysis of migration at different stages of the life course in the migration flow between large cities and their suburbs does not have a clear focus. The most active movers to the suburbs are families with children aged 0 and preschoolers, as well as people of older working and retirement age. In this sense, the Russian case is characterized by the same patterns that are observed in other countries. However, these rules do not work in Moscow and its suburbs, which raises a number of questions at this stage that require further research.

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