TERRITORIAL FEATURES OF MIGRATION INTENTIONS OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN THE STAVROPOL REGION

Abstract

The article is devoted to the current problem of youth migration in the context of a protracted demographic crisis in Russia (using the example of the Stavropol Territory). The study, based on data from a 2023 mass online survey of high school students (grades 8-11) in the Stavropol Territory, identified factors and motives for youth migration intentions, and also identified their territorial features. The key research methods are surveys, comparative geographic, cartographic and geoinformation. To construct cartograms, the QGIS geographic information platform was used. For the first time, several background cartograms have been constructed that reflect regional features in Russia of migration intentions of high school students in the Stavropol Territory, as well as intraregional features of migration intentions in the Stavropol Territory. To develop cartograms, the proportional indicators of migration intentions of high school students in the Stavropol Territory were calculated, which made it possible to clearly reflect the migration intentions of this category of youth at the regional and intraregional (municipal) territorial levels. The study identified the prevailing “intraregional trend” of migration intentions for the purpose of continuing education of high school students in the Stavropol Territory, as a rule, covering large centers of vocational education in the Stavropol and Kavminvody urban agglomerations, and above all, Stavropol and Pyatigorsk. Outside the region, the most attractive cities for schoolchildren are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don and Krasnodar. The migration aspirations of high school students after graduating from vocational education mainly have an “external” focus, consisting in leaving young people for permanent residence outside the Stavropol Territory, which, in the conditions of a demographic crisis, will lead to an inevitable increase in depopulation of the population and a decrease in the labor resource potential of the region.