Improving Living Standards As the Key to Developing the Russian Arctic

ERI FEB RAS	Issue's contents	RUS
	Regionalistica 2025 Volume 12 number 6 pages 117-137

Title of the article	Improving Living Standards As the Key to Developing the Russian Arctic
Pages	117-137
Author 1	Galtseva Natalya Vasilyevna doctor of economics, associate professor, deputy director for science North-East Interdisciplinary Scientific Research Institute named after N.A. Shilo FEB RAS 16, Portovaya Street, Magadan, Russia, 685000 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ORCID: 0000-0002-2163-418X
Author 2	Favstritskaya Oksana Sergeyevna candidate of sciences (economics), senior researcher North-East Interdisciplinary Scientific Research Institute named after N.A. Shilo FEB RAS 16, Portovaya Street, Magadan, Russia, 685000 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ORCID: 0000-0002-3558-032X
Author 3	Sharypova Olga Anatolyevna candidate of sciences (economics), senior researcher North-East Interdisciplinary Scientific Research Institute named after N.A. Shilo FEB RAS 16, Portovaya Street, Magadan, Russia, 685000 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ORCID: 0000-0001-5402-820X
Abstract	The main problem of Russia’s Arctic regions is the outflow of population, despite high levels of wages, per capita income, and housing availability. To determine the actual standard of living, an approach has been proposed that evaluates the purchasing power of per capita income and housing availability, taking into account their quality. The indicators were compared with the average Russian values for 1990–2024 for the regions that are fully included in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation: Murmansk Oblast and Nenets Autonomous Okrug (European Arctic), Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (Siberian Arctic), Chukotka Autonomous Okrug (Far Eastern Arctic). The results of the comparative analysis in the favorable Soviet and problematic post-Soviet periods of the economy indicate a decrease in the excess of the purchasing power of the average per capita income of the population relative to the average Russian level in all the Arctic regions considered relative to 1990. Due to the extremely low pace of new construction, there is almost no modern high-comfort housing in the Arctic regions. The significant decline in the real standard of living of the population in the post-Soviet period has led to a loss of attractiveness for the Arctic regions. To restore this attractiveness, we propose using the existing Soviet-era excess of the purchasing power of per capita income relative to the national average: 1,3 times in the European Arctic, 2,3 times in the Siberian Arctic, and 2,9 times in the Far Eastern Arctic. The standards for modern and comfortable housing should be higher than the national average.
Code	314.7+332.1+338.2
DOI	10.14530/reg.2025.6.117
Keywords	European Arctic, Siberian Arctic, Far Eastern Arctic, standard of living, per capita cash income, purchasing power, housing security, population outflow
Download	2025-06.117.pdf
For citation	Galtseva N.V., Favstritskaya O.S., Sharypova O.A. Improving Living Standards As the Key to Developing the Russian Arctic. Regionalistica [Regionalistics]. 2025. Vol. 12. No. 6. Pp. 117–137. http://dx.doi.org/10.14530/reg.2025.6.117 (In Russian)
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