Immigrants’ housing in the housing market in Russia: from the results of sociological questionnaire

Abstract

The study is based on the results of an original sociological survey conducted in 25 cities of Russia from June 2017 to March 2018 by the author. This paper focuses especially on labour immigrants from Central Asia, Ukraine, Belarus and Caucasus regions into Russia. This paper argues the following points; first, the correlation between the demographic movements and regional rental housing fee in Russia, second, the multi-layered structure and its informality of Russian housing market, finally, the relation between labour migrants’ housing condition and labour productivity. In the conclusion, the author points that the Russian housing market is segregated from this research results. Migrant’s housing deals are possibly the origin or bottom of the housing market. Their activity would move the regional housing rental market. However, some of their deals also seem to be invisible in the official housing statistics, that is to say, taking place in the informal housing market. This regards as one of characters, which Russian rental housing market has. It would be hurdle for foreign direct investor, which would invest into Russian market. In addition, the quality of immigrants’ housing condition is too low to support their labour productivity sustainably. We need to consider the improvement even for labour immigrants and the creation of more open housing market in Russia.

Keywords

• housing
• immigrant
• segregation
• informality
• multi-layered structure
• rental housing market
• Russia