Emigration Attitudes of Student Youth in the South of Russia

Konstantinov Mikhail Sergeevich PhD in Politics Associate professor, Department of Theoretical and Applied Political Science, Southern Federal University 344006, Russia, Rostovskaya oblast', g. Rostov-Na-Donu, ul. Bol'shaya Sadovaya, 105/42 konstantinov@sfedu.ru Other publications by this author

Potseluev Sergei Petrovich Doctor of Politics Professor, Department of Theoretical and Applied Political Science, Southern Federal University 344006, Russia, Rostov-on-Don, Bolshaya Sadovaya Street 105/42 spotselu@mail.ru Other publications by this author

IntroductionAt the end of 2019, the results of a study of emigration attitudes in Russian society conducted by sociologists of the Levada Center were published ^[9].

Scientists have revealed a steady increase in the spread of attitudes towards emigration among young people aged 18-24 years (from 22% in 2014 to 53% in September 2019). This study was widely replicated in the media and caused a strong resonance both in the journalistic and scientific environment [see, for example: 21], since this scandalous news appeared against the background of a growing number of reports about the growth of protest sentiments in Russian society as a whole, and in the youth environment in particular [see, for example: 16; 7]. If earlier studies of sociologists recorded political apathy and absenteeism characteristic of Russian youth [see, for example: 10; 12], then at the end of the second decade of the XXI century, the protest potential of young people is estimated much higher ^{[18; 19; 17; 14]}.

Despite the fact that subsequent studies by the Levada Center showed a significant decrease in attitudes towards emigration (up to 25% in March 2022 ^[25]), it should be borne in mind the effect of new factors, since the end of February 2022, influencing the emigration mood of the Russian population. Thus, according to the Levada Center, as early as early February 2022, 44% of young people aged 18 to 24 would like to leave the country for permanent residence ^[25], and in the summer of 2021 there were 48% of them ^[26]. Attention is also drawn to the fact that the previous (in relation to 2019) peak values of attitudes to emigration among young people fell on the politically turbulent 2011 ^{[11, 25]}, and the minimum - on the permeated "Crimean enthusiasm" 2014 ^[24]. The dynamics of emigration sentiments in Russian society is shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Dynamics of emigration sentiments in Russian society, according to the Levada Center [source: 25]

In the above graph, attention is drawn to the fact that if, in general, in Russian society, at least some dependence of attitudes towards emigration on the material situation is still observed, then some other, non-material factors are acting among young people. In fact, 2011 and 2019 were not the worst years in terms of the state of the Russian economy, and it is during these years that the peaks of emigration moods in the young segment of Russian society (18-24 and 25-39 years old) "fall out". At the same time, in the economic crisis years of 2014 and 2022, it shows the lowest levels of attitudes to emigration among young people. Moreover, a significant decrease in the level of these installations occurs from February to April 2022. (from 44% to 25%! ^[25]).

Review of scientific literatureThe data of other sociological services in Russia are quite comparable with the data of the Levada Center (see, for example, the research of the Public Opinion Foundation: 23; 27), but with some reservations.

Thus, VTsIOM also notes a relatively high level of emigration sentiment among young people (from 31% in 2018 to 38% in 2020 ^{[2; 3]}). VTSIOM employees came to the same conclusion that their colleagues from the Levada Center received: "The escalation of the conflict between Russia and the West, contrary to expectations, led not to an increase, but to a decrease in emigration sentiment. The emigration potential has been growing over the past three years, but now it has fallen to the level of 2018" ^[4]. Of course, it will be interesting to wait for new data showing the dynamics of emigration attitudes of young people after the partial mobilization announced on September 21, 2022 in Russia, but already now we can assume that there is no stable connection between material factors and emigration moods among young people.

In this context, the main problem is to identify the motivational link between the growth of protest sentiments, emigration attitudes and political crises. One of the most common concepts here is the explanation of crisis trends by deteriorating socio-economic conditions, which leads to progressive inefficiency of institutions and has the consequence of delegitimization of power. In the social sciences, it has long been a common idea that deteriorating social and economic conditions sooner or later lead to an increase in protest moods with the prospect of either a "break" (i.e. mass emigration) with a poor and politically inefficient state in favor of richer and more developed societies, or the degradation of the workforce and increasing political apathy, which in turn results in progressive institutional degradation and collapse of the entire institutional system [see, for example: 8; 20; 1; 5; 6; 28].

These explanatory schemes should work especially successfully in relation to Russian youth, who, on the one hand, are not yet sufficiently "rooted" in the social context due to incomplete socialization and are generally more inclined to socio-economic and political mobility, and on the other hand, traditionally follows a conscious avoidance of participation in political practices [see, for example: 10; 12], which in the end is more likely to result in the installation of a "break" with the political community. Thus, sociologists of the Levada Center noted the "narrowness of the semantic horizon" of the younger generation, since its value space is "set by simple coordinates - mainly entertainment media, mass culture and gloss, the magical mirage of "big money" as the most common indicator of success and status in the current conditions of a mass society" ^{[12, p. 11]}. Accordingly, with the dominance of such "materialistic" values in the youth consciousness, attitudes towards emigration should be associated primarily with the standard of living, with the socio-economic factor.

However, such concepts do not explain why a very large part of society in deteriorating socio-economic conditions not only does not seek to express protest, but even becomes more loyal to the authorities. A.O. Hirshman proposed a much more convincing concept linking the emerging attitude to emigration with the process of delegitimization of stagnating or degrading institutions: to replace "criticism" (or "voice", "voice") of specific institutions or sociality as a whole within the framework of declining "loyalty" ("loyalty") sooner or later comes a "break" (or "exit", "exit") with inefficient state and/or economic institutions ^{[22; see also: 15, pp. 31-39]}. In this concept, two opposite preferences are connected: the "gap" is a consequence of the inefficiency of channels for expressing one's own opinion, i.e. "voices". However, within the framework of this article, an even more important thought of A.O. Hirshman is the statement that the atrophy of cheap (in social and political, and not in economic terms) and effective channels for expressing discontent increases the likelihood of choosing the "exit" option ^{[22, p. 46]}. This leads to the key problem of explaining the motives for the growth of emigration sentiments among young people: should this growth be explained by deteriorating socio-economic conditions, or are the reasons rather political – the increasing repressiveness of the political regime, the shrinking opportunities for free criticism of the authorities, the desire of those in power to control the Internet, etc.

In connection with the problem outlined above, questions arise not only of an abstract theoretical, but also of a completely practical nature: if, as Russian sociologists suggest ^[9], the growth of emigration attitudes is due to socio-economic reasons ("The desire to provide children with a decent future abroad" and "The economic situation in Russia"), then such growth will continue in the foreseeable future, as the forecasts of many economic analysts for Russia are not without some pessimism. As a result, we will get a "lost generation" of young people who practically do not associate themselves with Russia in any way. If the reasons are political, ideological, symbolic, etc., then it will be quite enough to make some adjustments to government policy in order to reduce emigration attitudes among young people. Accordingly, the main issue is the motivation of not only those young people who would like to emigrate, but also those who, despite the deteriorating economic situation, refuse to go to the "gap" (A.O. Hirshman) with his country.

Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the deep motives of emigration attitudes in the student consciousness, as well as to establish the strength of the connection between the perception of the deterioration of the socio-economic situation, the value-ideological context of this perception and emigration attitudes.

MethodsThe theoretical and methodological basis of the research is the author's concept of cognitive-ideological matrices ^{[13; 30; 14]}, which involves the study of the pre-reflexive level of individual and group consciousness, on which proto-ideological elements (ideologems and concepts) are born, which, in turn, become the conceptual material for the crystallization of ideological consciousness.

In particular, on this theoretical and methodological basis, a connection was previously established between the attitudes of civic identity, language and religious values ^[29]. It can be assumed that the migration attitudes of Russian students are also in a deeper connection between the value structure of their consciousness than with their financial situation.

In methodological terms, the study is based on the results of a questionnaire survey conducted among students in the fall of 2019 in the South of Russia (in the Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories, in the Rostov and Astrakhan regions, in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic). The total sample consisted of 2,551 respondents, of which: - Krasnodar Krai: 459; - Stavropol Krai: 500; - Astrakhan Oblast: 281; - Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (hereinafter referred to as "KBR"): 499; - Rostov Oblast: 812. The standard deviation in the sample as a whole was ± 3.4%.

Analysis resultsAs a result of the survey, the absence of a direct link between the socio-economic situation of the region and the emigration attitudes of students was revealed.

Table 1. Emigration attitudes of students of the South of Russia (in percentages, the number of respondents is indicated in parentheses)№

From the data given in Table 1, it can be seen that young people in the South are much more patriotic than in Russia as a whole: only 20% of young people in the South have decided on their attitudes to emigration, in contrast to 53.0% obtained by sociologists of the Levada Center. However, regional differences within these 20% cannot but catch the eye: the most popular ideas of emigration are in the Astrakhan region (27.0% in aggregate in response positions 4 and 5), and the least – in the Stavropol Territory and the CBD (17.0% and 16.2%, respectively). The Rostov Region and Krasnodar Krai are the closest to the average indicator (20.8% and 21.6%, respectively). If we try to identify the reasons for these differences, then first of all we can refer to the statistical data of Rosstat by region (Table 2).

Table 2. Some socio-economic indicators of the regions of the South of Russia (according to Rosstat, summary table)№

As can be seen from the data given in Table 2, according to socio-economic indicators, the five regions under consideration are clearly divided into three groups:

- the Krasnodar Territory and Rostov Region are relatively rich and prosperous against the all - Russian background;

- relatively poor Astrakhan region and the CBD, in which the economic situation is either deteriorating or stagnating;

- the relatively poor Stavropol Territory, in whose economy, nevertheless, there has been a positive trend.

If we follow the logic of the economic motivation of emigration attitudes (the so-called "sausage emigration"), then the statistical distribution of youth attitudes to emigration should more or less correlate with socio-economic data by region. However, this is not observed.

Table 3. The contingent of the attitude to emigration with an assessment of their own financial situation (as a percentage, the number of respondents is indicated in parentheses)№

As can be seen from the data given in Table 3, the vast majority of young people who are determined to emigrate assess their financial situation as "satisfactory" or "good". At the same time, we are talking about self-assessment of their own financial situation, which may well not coincide with reality (for example, students of the poorest KBR, according to Rosstat, assess their financial situation much better than students of more economically prosperous regions). If the youth of the Astrakhan region form their attitudes in accordance with the "economic" logic, then the values of the youth of the Stavropol Territory and the CBD were formed in clear contradiction with this logic. What explains this spread of data? In order to answer this question, it is necessary to look at the conjugation of emigration attitudes of young people with the value structure of their consciousness. For example, it can be assumed that adherents of liberal ideology are more inclined to prefer the best socio-economic conditions than traditional values of family, language, community, etc. However, at the same time, it is necessary to distinguish between the ideological self-representations of students (their answers to the direct question: "How would you characterize your ideological and political beliefs?"), and real ideological attitudes that can be identified only through the attitude to certain ideological values.

Table 4. The contingent of the attitude to emigration with ideological self-representations (in percentages, the number of respondents is indicated in parentheses)№

Analysis of the data shown in the table 4. The data already allows us to detect some connections between ideological preferences and emigration attitudes. Indeed, the coupling of these variables shows a fairly close connection of these attitudes with liberal values. Only the values of students of the Astrakhan region and the CBD are below the average. This is explained by a shift to the left: Astrakhan students more often recognize themselves as Social Democrats. And in the CBD, the environmental agenda is the most pronounced (against the background of other regions), while the liberal ideology is the least popular. Here, monarchist views are the strongest and social-democratic ideology is quite popular. However, ideological self-presentation does not always coincide with real ideological preferences. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the connection between emigration attitudes and attitudes to ideological slogans (Table 5).

Table 5. The contingent attitude towards emigration with a positive attitude ("I totally agree" and "There is something in it", in aggregate) to political slogans (in percentages, the number of respondents is indicated in parentheses)№

The data given in Table 4 show the inconsistency of students' ideological ideas, which combine liberal values of personal freedom and human rights with xenophobic and even racist slogans "All the troubles of Russia are the result of a Jewish–Masonic conspiracy!", "Stop feeding other peoples!", etc. Nevertheless, some trend is quite clearly revealed. First of all, from among the respondents who chose the response position "As soon as possible, I will leave for permanent residence in another country," it is quite expected that we see a high level of support for liberal values, environmental values, as well as readiness for change. Support for social issues, attention to class contradictions, as well as to right-conservative and right-radical values is somewhat lower than in other groups of students. Unexpectedly high for this group is the level of support for the patriotic slogan "Right or not, but this is my Fatherland!", which looks somewhat strange against the background of intentions to emigrate from the country. Students from the CBD also showed surprisingly high support for the slogan "The feelings of atheists can also be insulted!", which may reflect a reaction to the level of religious freedom in the republic. The support of the ethnic slogan "Slavs of all countries, unite!", as well as the left-radical slogan "Eat pineapples, eat grouse, your last day is coming, bourgeois!" was also higher in the CBD. In the same group of students there is the highest level of the anti–Semitic slogan "All the troubles of Russia are the result of a Jewish–Masonic conspiracy" and the anti-American "Yankee go home!". Finally, the slogan "Our hearts demand changes!" enjoys the highest level of support among students of the CBD, which indirectly may indicate not so much the "revolutionary sentiments" in this group, but rather that these students are less inclined to choose an "exit-installation" to break with their own country than students of other groups. It was the understanding of these contradictions in previous studies that led the research team to develop the concept of cognitive-ideological matrices, which implies an appeal to more fundamental values of individual and group consciousness in explaining the formation of ideological concepts. In the case of the ideological context of emigration attitudes, it makes sense to turn to the analysis of deeper identity values, as well as basic household values (Tables 6 and 7).

Table 6. The contingent of the attitude to emigration with self-identification (as a percentage, the number of respondents is indicated in parentheses)№

As can be seen from the data given in Table 6, respondents with cosmopolitan or culturally conditioned self-identification, that is, identifying themselves with people who share their views on life, or with "inhabitants of the whole Earth", or with culturally close ones, are most likely to emigrate. And vice versa: ethnonational ("Citizens of Russia" and "People of my nationality"), religious and linguistic self-identification here enjoy the least support in this group of Russian students. Here it is impossible not to notice the difference in the way of self-identification of students of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic: they are less inclined to identify themselves with the inhabitants of the whole Earth, but national, religious and linguistic identities are much more significant for them. It is also interesting to note that the students of the Krasnodar Territory and the Rostov region were the least inclined to "urban patriotism", they are the least attached to the residents of their own cities. If, in relation to Krasnodar, this can somehow be explained by migration processes (since the beginning of the "zero" years, the city has actually doubled the number of residents at the expense of visitors), then the lack of urban patriotism among Rostov residents needs additional research.

Table 7. The contingent of the attitude to emigration with household values (as a percentage, the number of respondents is indicated in parentheses; a multiple choice question – no more than three possible answers)№

Comparing emigration attitudes with basic household values in Table 7, it can be seen that students of the KBR and Stavropol Krai prefer family values most of all. This is quite consistent with what we saw above regarding the preferences of self-identification of students of the groups under consideration: the lower the level of abstraction from others (the less "cosmopolitan" the respondent's identity is), the more respondents appreciate the intangible values of a close-knit family, their community, etc. As can be seen from the data given in Table 7, for students of the CBD and the Stavropol Territory, unlike all others, the values of material prosperity and environmental well-being are of the least importance. This is explained by the specifics of the self-identification of these students noted above. And, in turn, it can explain the extremely low level of attitudes to emigration revealed among students of the Stavropol Territory and the CBD. But if in the first case socio-economic factors (the growth of the region's economy, an increase in living standards, etc.) are also of some importance, then in the case of the CBD, value factors clearly outweigh socio-economic ones. It is curious that for all five groups of students considered, the first three places in the hierarchy of basic values are occupied by family, work and prosperity, but they are distributed differently in relation to the variance of deviations from the average value, and it is this variance that allows us to identify the nuances of the formation of cognitive-ideological matrices in the student consciousness. It is equally important to see the extremely low values of social activity of all five groups of students, as well as their indifference to the civil peace within the country. The analysis of the corresponding correlations shows that such low values are relevant precisely for respondents who chose the response position "As soon as possible, I will leave for permanent residence in another country." For students who do not have attitudes to emigration (or hide them), the values of social activity and civil peace within the country are of greater importance (although not radically – only 10-12% more, which, with an error of 3.4%, is of significant importance). The preferred objects of self–identification are also distributed differently - national, cultural and linguistic identities are more important.

5. ConclusionsSumming up, we can draw the following conclusions.

As it was shown above, the emigration moods of students are determined not so much by material reasons, but rather by ideological contexts in which the mindset for emigration is formed. But the ideological values and attitudes themselves are a consequence of the action of much deeper mechanisms of cognitive-value matrices, at the level of which proto-ideological elements are formed, which in turn form an individual's tendency to perceive certain ideological values. In the considered example, the ideologically conditioned attitude to emigration from the country is formed in the context of the values of liberal and social-democratic ideologies, which, in turn, turned out to be consonant with the proto-ideological concepts of self-identification that developed during the early socialization of student youth.