Attitude towards Immigrants in Russia: Regional Aspect

Abstract

The paper examines the issues related to the identifying factors that influence the attitude of Russian people towards immigrants. As such factors, we selected the individual characteristics of the respondents (gender, age, educational level, marital status, income level, etc.), as well as indicators characterizing the respondent’s place of residence (region, type of settlement) and the economic situation in the corresponding region. (gross regional product per capita, unemployment rate, share of industries in which migrants are most employed, etc.). The analysis was based on the data of the 7th World Value Survey for Russia in 2017, containing information on 1,810 respondents from 61 Russian regions. With the help of linear regression models and geographically weighted regression was shown that the best attitude towards immigrants demonstrated young people and older generation, respondents with higher education and with average or high-income level. However, attitudes towards immigrants are varying sufficiently and greatly depend on the place of residence. The best attitude towards immigrants demonstrate residents of non-capital cities, as well as residents of the Samara and Saratov regions, the worst – residents of the most poor and most rich regions.Attitude towards immigrants is also improving with an increase in the share of construction and trade in the economy of the region (these industries employ the most immigrants). Local residents are gradually getting used to immigrants, the higher the proportion of migrants who came from abroad, the better the residents of the respective region relate to immigrants

Keywords

• immigrants
• attitude towards immigrants
• world value survey
• regions of russia
• linear regression model
• geographically weighted regression