Nikita Mkrtchyan, Leading Research Fellow, Center for Demographic Research, Institute of Demography, National Research University Higher School of Economics

The biggest difficulty in migration research is obtaining adequate information. Unlike other branches of demography - the study of fertility, mortality - migration is much more difficult to quantify. Statistics in Russia are far from perfect, and we do not conduct representative surveys on migration topics. Unfortunately, censuses do not provide accurate data. Therefore, we very often encounter the absence or inaccuracy of information. Figuratively speaking, if Russian statistics says that there is “zero” somewhere, in fact this “zero” can be a “minus”, and if it claims that there is a “big plus” somewhere, in reality it is rather “a certain plus.” ".

— Nikita Vladimirovich, to what area of ​​knowledge would you classify the study of migration?

— Migration is a multifaceted phenomenon, so its study has an interdisciplinary character. Here there is a place for demography, and geography, and political science, and sociology, and history, and even psychology. There is no unanimous opinion among specialists, unconditional attribution of migration problems to any one area of ​​scientific knowledge. It is closest to demography, and is usually studied along with it, but it can also be considered as a completely separate industry and studied within other disciplines.

Migration studies are very diverse. In Russia, the study of external migration associated with foreign citizens who come to us, and Russians traveling abroad is now the most common.

However, I am more interested in internal migration - the movement of Russian citizens around the country: not “migration across Russia as a whole”, but migration at the level of regions and municipalities. When a person decides to move, he is going from a certain place, for example, from a village in the Stavropol Territory - let's say, to the city of Krasnodar, and not "generally migrates around Russia." What reasons cause resettlement - the answer to this question must be sought in those cities and regions where a person is directly resettled, where he can apply his labor, purchase or rent housing, and arrange his personal life.

— What is a “typical migration study”, what stages can be identified?

— It is difficult to talk about a typical migration study, perhaps there are none. A sociologist will work according to his method, a demographer, or, say, a historian, according to his own. Let me tell you about our relatively recent work.

My colleagues and I were commissioned by the state to conduct a study of the potential mobility of the unemployed. The task was to find out whether the unemployed, who are looking for work with the assistance of the labor and employment authorities, are ready to move where they want and are ready to be sent, provided that the state stimulates their migration. Our governing structures understand that migration needs to be supported somehow, and, in theory, the most suitable contingent is people who have problems finding employment in their city (village, settlement). The question is what kind of support measures can the state offer and will they resonate with potential migrants? This study began in 2008 and has proved surprisingly relevant in the face of the crisis.

First of all, we developed a questionnaire. At this stage, we try to attract various specialists, in this case we have attracted labor specialists. We already had some experience in conducting sociological research and completed questionnaires. But we always adjust the toolkit according to the goals of a particular work. Since such a study cannot be carried out without the assistance of the authorities, we turned to the labor and employment authorities and asked them to help us. We launched questionnaires “in the field”, conducted a survey, collected data, processed it, wrote a report and prepared recommendations. The order was completed, but we did not stop there.

A feature of studies commissioned by the state is short terms and specific tasks. I do not remember a single survey ordered by government agencies, which would last more than six months. After the order is completed, work with the received material usually does not end - in the absence of a strict time frame, more can often be extracted from them. We conducted a repeated series of surveys of a similar audience using the same questionnaire, already without an order from the state. However, we turned to our former customers with one request - to help us organize work in the field, and this assistance was provided to us. The first data was collected in October 2008, when practically nothing was said about the crisis in the labor market. The next wave was in 2009, when everything was already clear with the crisis, although the acute phase had passed and it became clear that this was not 1998, everything was somewhat different. Based on the general results, we prepared an article on the readiness of the Russian unemployed to actively seek work in other regions, on their potential spatial mobility in this difficult time - it turned out to be very small, contrary to the expectations of managers.

In my opinion, this study of ours may be useful - the Russian economy is cyclical, a crisis is very likely, a new generation of managers will try to take the same steps ... If one of them reads our article, he will be able to understand what can really happen, get rid of from many illusions.

— What is the biggest challenge for a migration researcher?

- Obtaining adequate information. Unlike other branches of demography - the study of fertility, mortality - migration is much more difficult to quantify. Statistics in Russia are far from perfect, and representative migration surveys are not conducted in our country. Unfortunately, even censuses do not provide accurate data. Therefore, we very often encounter the absence or inaccuracy of information. Figuratively speaking, if Russian statistics says that there is “zero” somewhere, in fact this “zero” can be a “minus”, and if it claims that there is a “big plus” somewhere, in reality it is rather “a certain plus.” ".

Thus, we were engaged in the preparation of regional surveys of the population in the Irkutsk region, the Krasnoyarsk and Perm regions by order of regional authorities and corporations. Any migration study begins with a visit to the statistics department, because the data that can be obtained in Moscow or read in bulletins published in Moscow by Rosstat are often not suitable for our purposes in principle. Rosstat represents the region as a single point - the number of urban population, the number of rural at such and such a point in time, and then I needed information on all cities in a number of districts, say, the Irkutsk region. Moreover, in Irkutsk we had to measure the so-called pendulum migration - from which cities and districts of the region people constantly go to work in Irkutsk. This is necessary in order to estimate the size of the Irkutsk agglomeration - if there are permanent labor relations of this type, the city is included in the agglomeration, if not, then it is not included. This information can only be obtained by conducting a survey of the population, because. there are no statistics on such “pendulum” migration.

Then the usual story began - at first the customer said that all the opportunities for research would be provided, we prepared a toolkit, but then - one thing interferes, then another. As a result, all the deadlines have passed, and the survey was not carried out. Therefore, they sculpted “from what was”, the agglomeration was measured “by eye”. Luckily, the study was not limited to these issues.

The usual situation is that the customer does not have data, they need to be extracted independently, on the spot. We are strictly limited in terms. While all the approvals are underway, there are 2-4 months left before the completion of the project. Here, we either achieve the minimum information we need with a titanic effort, or the research is postponed until the next year and this is where it all ends. Usually a visit of a researcher to a region is constant walking around various structures and "knocking out" information. I remember one of my first projects, in Nizhny Novgorod. I had to “run around” 3-4 structures a day - the migration service, labor and employment authorities, social protection authorities, transport workers, and wait for the right person everywhere, sit down at the computer with him and pull out information. Very hard and exhausting work, but necessary. It is not enough for a researcher to have a good understanding of the subject in order to start studying at least something. It is necessary to get to know people in the regions, to convince them that without the information they have, the work will not work.

Is it possible to learn to understand what each figure of Russian statistics is fraught with, or do you just need to make friends among officials?

- You can learn about some patterns of how these numbers are obtained. However, this is a completely separate industry, which is handled by several specialists throughout Russia. For example, one of them, Olga Sergeevna Chudinovskikh, who is the head of the Department of the Laboratory of Population Economics and Demography at the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University, and, more recently, an employee of the Higher School of Economics, lectures at our master's program "Demography". She has been studying Russian statistics throughout the 2000s, she has a lot of works on this topic. She conducts trainings for colleagues throughout Russia and the CIS, and is an expert in a number of international organizations. Olga Sergeevna is a very qualified and persistent researcher, she can spend hours calling officials at various levels in the Federal State Statistics Service, the Federal Migration Service, and other departments to find out how this or that figure appeared. She shares much of her knowledge with colleagues. But the most important thing, of course, is to understand that it is not enough to write out or “download” a series of numbers from a statistical book - you need to find out the origin of each indicator, and for this, learn to talk with those people who are engaged in the production of information, understand all the subtleties of accounting.

What part of the study is the most exciting for you?

- I really like to “walk in the field” myself. I had a study on what hinders spatial mobility, and three "model" cities were chosen for this - Yekaterinburg, Stavropol and Moscow. I did my research almost alone. I only had assistants (very good, as it turned out) on the ground, whose task was to put me in contact with a dozen employers, officials, and the migrants themselves in each of the regions. With all these people, I talked on a pre-prepared "guide" interview. It's not easy to talk to officials. They are squeezed by their instructions from all sides, some can’t actually say anything, “no matter what happens.” The employers are a completely different matter. I had one employer with whom I talked on the way to the store - she had to send concrete mixers to the construction site, there was no time at all. But she very capaciously, on questions - literally in three words, explained to me the essence of many problems. She had such an expressive, “juicy” speech that I later scrolled through the recording to the students - it’s one thing to read our abstruse reasoning for a dozen pages, another a few words about the same and much more figurative.

I had to process the received interviews, highlight some key points and write a report. Very exciting work, some people are still remembered. I remember one worker at a construction site in Yekaterinburg, who said how my grandfather “…was done” (work on a former collective farm). I am not the only one who thinks so - one of my colleagues, an excellent researcher, an economist by basic education, after the first such study, she thought to deal only with qualitative sociology ...

Let's say a young man decides to do migration research. What is the best education here?

— Of course, I am a patriot of HSE and our master's program Demography (specialization - sociology) and I think that we provide very good training for our students, but in general, you can come to migration studies from almost any science. A psychologist, a sociologist, a geographer, and a mathematician will find themselves here. For example, history is not at all close to me, but I know historians who have been engaged in migration in a historical vein all their lives. For sociologists, it's just an unplowed field. Or, let's say, I acted as a co-supervisor of a diploma for a girl from the HSE Faculty of Economics. She studied econometrics, but decided to try on a number of models to study migration processes. And he successfully continues this work, already in the graduate school of the Higher School of Economics.

What advice would you give to a student who is interested in migration studies?

- Read a lot - both Russian and foreign researchers. We have been conducting systematic studies of migration since the 1960s, and relevant works have begun to appear. Prior to this, there had been practically no research on migration for several decades, in general, the term migration was not actually used, we had an “organized redistribution of labor resources”. A planned economy... But one cannot ignore the objective: the well-known "The water of the Kuban River flows, where the Bolsheviks order" cannot be applied to people. Serious studies began to appear. I will name the works of Viktor Ivanovich Perevedentsev and Zhanna Antonovna Zaionchkovskaya, with whom you need to get acquainted. It is imperative to study foreign literature - in Europe, the United States there are no such problems with statistics as we have, surveys are conducted, respectively, they have more opportunities, a better base for studying the processes of interest to us. I would also advise you to look for the area that is interesting. The researcher does not want to communicate with people - you can do mathematical models, data processing, work in archives.

But the most important thing is not to stop there, not to sit still. When I first started my research activity 20 years ago, it seemed to me - well, what new can I learn about migration? And now I feel like I know almost nothing about her. I believe that if a scientist begins to think that he has figured out something to the end, this is an alarming sign. You must always look for something new.

Interviewed by Ekaterina Rylko

One of the poets said that all professions are important and all professions are needed. But always in demand and useful were and will be professions related to the land: geologists, miners, agronomists, environmentalists, surveyors, builders. Let's dwell on them in more detail.

Professions related to the study of the lithosphere

Geologists and Miners – Life-Risking Romance (Professions Related to the Study of the Lithosphere) Geologists have always been associated with the romance of travel, life in tents. But this is only one side of the coin. The heroic work of people of this profession is the study of the composition of the earth, the lithosphere (the solid shell of the Earth), the search for minerals, their development.

Scientific work

Seismologists, scientists. Representatives of this profession are collected, responsible, observant, able to work in a team, and are not afraid of extreme conditions.

Miners can rightly be considered the most courageous and courageous people. After all, every million tons of coal mined costs about four human lives. It is the miners who have to work deep underground and risk their lives almost every time. One of the most highly paid professions, cultivating endurance, requiring good physical fitness, is also the most risky and dangerous.

The oldest professions on earth

The agronomist rightfully belongs to the most common and most ancient. Already several millennia ago, people knew how to cultivate the land, grow certain crops. Agriculture without this profession is impossible to imagine: agronomists not only grow crops, but also breed new varieties of wheat, apple trees, and rapeseed that are so useful and necessary for mankind.

To some extent, construction specialties can also be attributed to land-related professions, because houses are built on land. Also one of the oldest professions, which can be safely called the most peaceful. The secrets of the building craft were passed down from generation to generation, some, unfortunately, were lost forever, but the palaces built many centuries ago still stand.

The builder is always in good physical shape, stress-resistant, able to bring what he started to the end. In addition, builders will be in demand at any time.

Taking care of the ground and a bit of convex-concave surfaces

Ecologists make sure that the harm caused by mankind to the earth is minimal, they care about environmental protection, they study flora and fauna in interaction with human activity.

The land registry specialist takes into account the quantity and quality of land, its fertility and location.

And the surveyor, who in tsarist Russia was called a land surveyor, studies all the convexities and concavities of the earth's surface in order to correctly design and arrange buildings.

Professions related to the earth and the study of the lithosphere are quite earthly, sometimes risky and difficult. But the one who chose these professions is really always needed and important.

We have only just begun to comprehend the complexity of the relationship between humans and the trillions of microscopic organisms that live on and within us. However, from what scientists have learned so far, one thing is clear: the communities of microorganisms in our bodies play a role in everything from body weight and energy management to mental health.

The first scans of whole-body chemicals on human skin reveal that many of them are residues from topical skin products, raising concerns that man-made chemicals are disrupting the function of the skin microbiome. One can imagine that in the future there will be a specialist who will help us become conscientious "shepherds" of our microflora.

Last week, Chinese scientists reported that they had managed to edit the genes of human embryos. The researchers decided to fight the gene behind β-thalassemia, a dangerous blood disease, with the help of technology. The study represents the first documented attempt to edit a human fetus and revives debate over the ethics of human augmentation and the "design" of babies.

Germline modification may one day be used not only to correct genetic sequences, but also to add new desirable traits. In the long term, we can practically think about how to regulate the market for bespoke people and parents who plan to have a genetically modified child. The Personal Trait Selection Assistant can help parents understand the legal limits of fetal editing, as well as help select the most appropriate traits for a bright future child.

3. Specialist in adapting loaded consciousness

The mind upload sounds like pure science fiction. It's pretty hard to digitize an analog book without making a few unwanted mistakes, so what can you expect from digitizing people themselves?

Although mind uploading seems extremely difficult, some scientists consider it possible and quite feasible. Ideas are swarming like this: if we ourselves are encoded in the structure and activity patterns of our brain, then eventually we will be able to capture and catalog the nanostructure of the brain itself. This means re-reproducing these structures and patterns of activity in a different, more stable environment, which will be equal to or better than the meat brain. Let's say on a computer.

Consciousness uploading has been put forward as a possible future state for the entire human civilization. But it can also be an effective means of preserving the people themselves, whose bodies have been destroyed by disease, while new bodies are being prepared.

Who knows what effect the trip from meat to silicon and back to meat will have on the human mind - especially if a person is reborn in a world that has changed beyond recognition. A new class of brain reintegrators will instruct newcomers on all the changes that have taken place in the world, provide physical therapy and initiation into new cultural norms. These new arrivals might even stay for a while in adaptation houses, a kind of transitional zone where they could acclimatize to a new, hostile or friendly world.

4. Organ farms

Organ shortage has already become a gigantic problem today. Every year in the US, for example, there are 28,000 transplants while another 120,000 people are on the waiting list. They also calculated that about 35% of annual deaths in the United States could be prevented by timely organ transplants. This is the impetus for the development of organ culture laboratories.

As regenerative medicine continues to advance, so will our ability to mass-produce inexpensive organs. San Diego-based Organovo is a leader in this field, thanks to its ability to print organs. Another approach is to create a 3D scaffold for an organ like a heart, kidney, liver, or lung, and then add stem cells that can grow an entirely new organ for transplant. Looking to the future and given the intense requirements for organs, the job of an organ farmer could become quite in demand.

5. Artificial protein designer

The global demand for meat, fish and other sources of protein is increasing as countries like China grow in size and economic influence. According to the UN, per capita meat consumption worldwide doubled from 1961 to 2007 and will double again by 2050. The global demand for meat, coupled with the scarcity of resources like water and arable land, is driving innovation in the food industry. If meat becomes less available or acceptable by 2025, what kind of protein could replace it?

Modern startups like Modern Meadow and Beyond Meat are developing alternatives to farm-raised meat through in vitro meat and its substitutes. If the industry finds its way, the demand for edible artificial protein - and the people who make it - will grow and satisfy the hunger of those in need.

6. Zoologist of extinct and resurrected animals

Scientists around the world are making strides in bringing extinct species back to life, and while there are a million important questions and concerns about the ethics of resurrection, this process could hold promise in the future for the restoration and conservation of already endangered species.

For example, once upon a time, many subspecies of elephants roamed the earth, playing an important role in the planet's ecosystem. A population of resurrected elephants (or, even better, mammoths) could help us fight the desertification of vast tracts of land. An extinct species resurrection and restoration zoologist will also work on integrating those species into the wild, as well as studying any possible contingencies associated with the return of long-dead animals. Including dinosaurs. Who knows, maybe these majestic lizards will be able to return to the world.

7. Biomechanics Maintenance Specialist

With the growing number of technologies that are integrating onto and into our bodies, it is not hard to imagine an increase in the number of informal specialists who will repair, upgrade and maintain specific cybernetic additions to ourselves.

Such "medical technicians" can work in private stores, visiting which will be similar to visiting a car service station. Imagine a major overhaul of your body, an annual check-up, an "oil change" or a spark plug. This may also include the emotional and psychological aspects of traditional health care, as well as many other related activities.

8. Artisanal pharmacist

One of the options for the rapid development of personalized medicine, low-cost genome sequencing and rapid drug prototyping may be a future where small batches of drugs are developed quickly and on demand. Such “artisanal pharmacists” will be able to manufacture small doses of medicines based on a comprehensive understanding of an individual’s genetics, personal health history, socioeconomic environment, habits and daily routines, and so on.

Today, the manufacture of drugs in private laboratories inevitably evokes images of criminals and scum who work for the black market. Tomorrow, independent drug makers may have a more legitimate (and more therapeutic) place in the healthcare ecosystem.

9. Connectome architect

contains about 115,000 neurons per cubic millimeter, and each individual neuron creates up to a thousand connections with surrounding neurons. The complexity of brain tissue is astounding. Now consider that the average adult brain contains about 1.3 million of these cubes.

To say that this weave is hellishly complex is to say nothing. The task of displaying these separate inputs and outputs - the so-called human connect - is one of the most difficult technical projects that people have attempted.

But this project is worth the candle. The complete human connectome can dramatically improve our understanding of how brain disorders and abnormalities occur. It can also contribute to the emergence of professionals in their industry who will carry out nanosurgical interventions in the human brain. Think of a connectome as a blueprint for a building. The connectome can provide guidance for pre-planned operations that will redirect neural processes and thereby remove unwanted mental characteristics (or activate desirable ones).

According to io9

Demography is unthinkable without the organization of accounting for the size and composition of the population. The administrative activity of any state, its military-defense and other functions, as well as financial and tax goals have long determined the great practical importance of demography, brought to life the organization of population registration and understanding of its results. The experience of recording the size and composition of the population, and then conducting population censuses, has a long history.

The oldest known population censuses were carried out in China in the 23rd century. BC.; from the 12th century BC. The population of this country has already been counted periodically. In ancient Egypt, Iran, ancient Judea, Mesopotamia, India and a number of other countries, the simplest population counts were carried out. The Bible contains indirect information about the registration of the population in ancient Judea, about the conduct of population censuses (Bible. Gospel of Luke, ch. 2). In the Bible there is not only an indication of the conduct of a population census in Ancient Judea, but also a kind of statement of the rules of population censuses and their results. In the book of the Old Testament - the book "Numbers", as well as in the second book of Kings there is a mention of this: "And the Lord said to Moses ... number the whole community of the sons of Israel by their generations, by their families, by the number of names, all males without exception , from twenty years and above, all fit for war with Israel, number them according to the hosts ”(Numbers, ch. 1). The second book of Kings refers to the census conducted by King David. In ancient Greece, population records, but only adult males, have been known since the end of the 4th century BC. BC. In the Roman Empire, the population was taken into account relatively regularly, while accounting for the number of citizens and their property from 510 to 30. BC. called the qualification; the first of them was held in the VI century. BC. During the period of the republic, qualifications were held every 5 years, and in the 1st century. AD have not been carried out. The first censuses (qualifications) of the population were carried out mainly for fiscal and military purposes. These censuses did not cover everything, but only (or usually) the taxable male population, because the main goals of the censuses were certain numbers of taxpayers and soldiers. But there were also attempts to take into account the size of the entire population and even to determine the main features of its sex and age composition. For example, in ancient Rome, under Servius Tullius (1st century BC), donations to temples were collected from each inhabitant, and the amount of donations depended on the gender and age of the person.

In the Middle Ages, in different countries or their parts, individual cities, population counts were carried out sporadically and, as a rule, in connection with fiscal goals, as well as with some special circumstances, such as epidemics, wars and their consequences. Usually not specific people were taken into account, but a house or a hearth, i.e. households. In England, on the orders of William the Conqueror, a population census was carried out (1086) - its results became known as the Doomsday Book. In the XV-XVI centuries. the practice of registering the population in individual cities and states expanded: in the cities of Nuremberg - in 1449, Strasbourg - in 1473, etc.; in countries: Switzerland (canton Zurich) - in 1567, Saxony - in 1571, Prussia - in 1582, etc.

But at the same time, the population count was still, as a rule, carried out only occasionally and in order to determine the number of inhabitants capable of paying taxes and participating in military defense operations. In this case, most often only the number of men was taken into account. The methods of counting the population were different. In some cases, people were personally counted, in another case, the population was determined by the number of hearths (smoke from building chimneys) or houses, multiplied by the average number of inhabitants of one house.

This practice was in Europe and in some Asian countries. Only from the second half of the XVIII century. in Europe, population records began to be carried out relatively regularly: in Sweden - from 1749, in Austria - from 1754, in Spain - from 1748, etc.

The prehistory of population censuses, covering the entire population and conducted regularly, dates back to the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century. Since 1790, US population censuses have been regularly conducted. In 1801, censuses representative of those times were held in England, France, and Denmark. They began to regularly count the population in Norway - from 1815, Austria - from 1818, Holland - from 1824, in individual German states - from the 30s of the XIX century. From the second half of the XIX century. began to conduct population censuses in the countries of Eastern and Southern Europe. At the end of XIX - beginning of XX century. Population censuses began to be conducted in countries in other parts of the world, except for Europe. Thus, the first relatively representative census of the entire population of China took place only in 1953.

Gradually, the set of indicators in the population censuses of different countries expanded. So, in the first censuses of the population of France, gender and marital status were taken into account. Then, from the middle of the 19th century, according to the experience of the English population census, from 1841, age was taken into account in the French censuses. In 1846, the census of the population of Belgium was carried out in the most representative and on a scientific basis. The scientific principles of counting the population in the country were developed and supervised by the census by the statistician A. Quetelet (1796-1874), one of the founders of statistics and demography. For the first time in the world, he developed the principles of conducting population censuses, and also established that some social phenomena: fertility, mortality, crime, etc. - have a certain pattern. The census of the population of Belgium in 1846 was carried out in one day, the actual population was determined (and not legal, that is, registered according to documents). Records were kept by specially trained registrars (rather than ordinary administrative officials). The experience of conducting this census in Belgium was highly appreciated in other countries, which began to use it in their census practice. The need to exchange experience in conducting population censuses was recognized.

Of great importance for the qualitative conduct of population censuses, for improving the methodology of censuses, were international statistical congresses, which began to be held in the second half of the 19th century. From 1853 to 1876, nine international statistical congresses were held: in Brussels - in 1853, in Paris - in 1855, Vienna - in 1857, London - in 1860, Berlin - in 1863 ., Florence - in 1867, The Hague - in 1869, Budapest - in 1876, St. Petersburg - in 1872. the experience of conducting a census in Belgium in 1846. It was proposed to conduct censuses at least once every 10 years, in years ending in 0 (or 9, 1), to take into account the actual population at a certain point in time, etc. The recommendations of the congress were taken into account in civilized countries of the world. In the 70s of the XIX century. conducted 48 censuses, in the 80s - 54, in the 90s - 57, and in the first decade of the 20th century - 74. Later, such congresses were not held. In 1885, the International Statistical Institute was founded, which held once every 3 years sessions of statisticians-demographers. One of these sessions was held in 1897 in St. Petersburg, where a recommendation was made to all countries to hold at the beginning of the 20th century. population census. In 1900, 19 countries conducted population censuses, in 1901 - 26 countries.

The practice of conducting population censuses has steadily expanded. Until 1870, they covered only a fifth of the world's population, and by the beginning of the 20th century. - about 60-64%, by the beginning of the XXI century. There are no countries left in the world that have never had a population census. But there are countries where the last census was carried out 10-20 years ago. This situation is typical for underdeveloped countries and countries experiencing a difficult period in their history. Thus, in Russia, after a full-fledged population census in January 1989, due to organizational and financial difficulties, it was possible to conduct a new general census only at the end of 2002.

Russia has centuries-old experience in conducting population censuses. In the annals of the IX-XI centuries. there are references to the collection of tribute by the princes, which means that the population was also taken into account. They began to be carried out especially carefully during the period of the Horde invasion, in order to more accurately and fully determine the amount of tribute. Thus, from the middle of the 13th century, i.e. for seven and a half centuries, the practice of conducting population registration is known in Russia. In addition to the purpose of collecting tribute, from the end of the XIII century. some Russian princes occasionally began to take into account for tax purposes not only the population, but also land and houses.

During the period of the Horde invasion, special counters - “Chistsy” - took into account the entire population, except for the clergy (who were exempted by the Horde from paying tribute to them). In those censuses (1246, 1255-1256, 1256-1259) the unit of observation was the household, the house; it was them that were taken into account by the counters.

In the XIV-XVI centuries. land plots became the unit of taxation in Russia, in connection with this, the censuses were land-based, they took into account land holdings, the number of households and residents. The results of the censuses were presented in cadastral books.

From the 17th century, when the household (yard) became the unit of taxation, the censuses became household censuses. Only the taxable male population was taken into account, but sometimes women, part or even all of the non-taxable population were taken into account. Conducted several all-Russian household censuses, including in 1646, 1678, 1710. Moreover, during the census in 1710, Tsar Peter I authorized for the first time in the country to take into account not only the taxable, but also the entire population, including the privileged strata of Russian society. The Russians did not seek to be rewritten and tried to avoid accounting, so the population of the country in 1710 turned out to be underestimated. Peter I did not approve the results of the census and ordered in 1716-1717. conduct a new census, which also proved unsuccessful.

It turned out that the household form of accounting suffers from a significant flaw. Residents with the goal, in modern terms, of tax evasion, underestimated the number of households, artificially enlarging them for the period of the next census. To reduce taxes, landlords also tried to reduce the number of households. This was one of the main reasons for the transition to poll taxation and the restructuring of the censuses - they began to take into account male souls.

In 1718, Peter I issued a decree on the introduction of per capita registration of the male population, and in 1719 he supplemented it with the Decree "On the conduct of a general census of people in a taxable state, on the filing of audit tales and on penalties for hiding souls." From 1722-1725 population records in the country began to be called audits. They were held until the abolition of serfdom. The audits did not take into account everything, but only the taxable population, and were not carried out throughout Russia. Since 1719, they began to compile lists of the population (they were then called "revision tales"), which were then checked during revisions. Per capita censuses in Russia were carried out from 1719 to 1859. It should be noted that there were 10 of them and each lasted from 1 to 4-6 and even 11-15 years. They did not take into account the actual inhabitants, but the legal and only male population. The landlords sought to underestimate the number of souls in order to pay less taxes, and also did not always submit the next “revision tale” in a timely manner, some of the dead continued to be listed as alive. This is the basis of the plot of "Dead Souls" by N.V. Gogol. With the abolition of serfdom in 1861, there was no longer a need to conduct per capita population censuses in Russia. From 1860 to 1889, 79 local, local population censuses were conducted in 69 cities. However, since the middle of the XIX century. justified the need for a general population census in Russia. In 1897 the first general population census was carried out.

We note in particular that in the world history of demography and population statistics in the 19th century. Russia and the capital of that time, St. Petersburg, has a special place. In 1872, it hosted the International Congress, and in 1897, a session of the International Statistical Institute. The Congress of 1872 was held in St. Petersburg on the initiative and under the chairmanship of P.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky (1827-1914), an outstanding Russian geographer, traveler, statistician. It was at this Congress that the main principles for conducting general population censuses were determined. Congress recommended that countries:

1) conduct population censuses regularly, but not less than every 10 years, in years ending in 0 or in close years;

2) take into account the entire population (i.e. conduct a general census);

3) take into account the actual (cash), and not the legal (assigned), population;

4) conduct a census at a precisely fixed point in time.

The next population census on the territory of Russia was carried out in 1920 during the Civil War and "war communism". Then the Soviet government decided to simultaneously conduct three censuses:

1) population,

2) industrial enterprises,

3) agricultural (covering 85% of the population).

The census took into account the actual and permanent (in cities) population. In 1923, a census of the urban population was carried out, but it covered only a part of the urban population (it was not possible to conduct it on part of the country's territory). The census was conducted by the method of questioning, taking into account the actual population. In 1926 the All-Union population census was carried out (in 1922 the USSR was formed). Its materials were published in 56 volumes and still remain the best publications of the population census results in our country.

In 1937, the next census of the country's population was carried out, which stated a slight increase in the number of inhabitants. To a large extent, the forced collectivization of agriculture in 1928-1932, the subsequent famine and mass repressions, including the severe famine of 1932-1933, determined the reduction in the population of the country in 1933-1935 by almost 5 million people (with officially proclaimed in 1933, the forecast for the growth of the country's population for 1933-1937 by 15 million people).

This did not suit the Soviet and party leadership of the USSR, therefore this census was recognized as incorrect due to the allegedly deliberate distortion of the indicators of the country's demographic development. Most of the census leaders and many enumerators were declared "pests", they were repressed and almost all of them died in the camps or were shot. The results of this census were rejected and a new census was scheduled.

In 1939, a new general population census was conducted, the results of which were clearly overestimated, but suited the country's leaders of those years. The census materials turned out to be unclaimed, since the Second World War began. The materials of the 1939 census were published in full only in the 1990s.

The next population census was conducted in 1959; it did not differ much from the 1939 census in terms of the main program issues, its census sheet included 15 questions. The census took into account the actual and permanent population. For the first time, a selective method was used (not during the survey, but during the development of materials about families). The census results were published in 16 volumes.

The next census was conducted in 1970, its census questionnaire included 18 questions. For the first time in the USSR, including Russia, the issues of population migration were considered and a selective method was used (for 7 questions, the survey was conducted by enumerators only in a quarter of dwellings). Part of the information was obtained by interviewing not all, but only 25% of the inhabitants (this was done to save time and money). The census materials were published in 7 volumes in the public domain and 10 volumes classified as "confidential".

Then the population census was carried out in 1979. Its census questionnaire included 16 questions, of which 5 were selective and concerned only 25% of the population. The results of the census were published in 1 public volume and in 10 volumes marked "confidential". When processing census materials, for the first time in the country, a computer was used.

The next population census was conducted in 1989. Its census sheet included 25 questions, of which 18 concerned the population and 7 - the living conditions of people (the last time similar questions were only in the 1926 census). 3/4 of the country's population answered 20 questions, and 1/4 (25% of the population) answered all 25 questions. The census questions were basically the same as in the 1979 census. The results of this census were published in a short version. In the 1989 census, for the first time in the country, representative data were obtained not only on the population, but also on the housing conditions of various socio-demographic groups of the population.

In 1985, for the first time in the country, a micro-census of the population was conducted, which covered only 5% of the population of the USSR and included 27 questions. More precisely, it was the All-Union Selective Socio-Demographic Survey of the Population, where there were not only demographic, but also socio-economic issues (for example, housing conditions, average monthly income, etc.).

In 1994, a similar micro-census of the population was conducted, it was called the "All-Russian micro-census of the population" and included 41 questions. In the practice of domestic population censuses in 1985, 1989, 1994. not only demographic factors were taken into account, but also demographic opinions. Thus, for a sample of the population in the data of the 1989 census and micro-censuses of the population of 1985 and 1994. along with information on the number of children born, there is an opinion on the expected and desired number of children in the family.

The first scientific demographic work is considered to be the work of the English scientist J. Graunt (1620-1674) “Natural and political observations made on the bulletins of mortality”, published in 1662. Following him, a school of “political arithmetic” was formed, in which the main attention was paid to the study of mortality , as the results of the studies were in demand by life insurance companies. The first theory of population in history was published in 1798 by T. Malthus (1766-1834) in his work “An experiment on the law of population in connection with the future improvement of society”, where it was proved that the population is growing faster than the means to ensure it increase. Subsequently, this theory was refuted, but the problem raised by T. Malthus of excessive population growth and the correlation of this growth with the level of socio-economic development of society is still relevant.

In the 19th century the main attention of scientists was directed to the organization of the correct statistical accounting of the population, including the method of general censuses (the works of C. Bernoulli, A. Guillard, A. Quetelet, and others). In the first half of the XX century. the focus of researchers is the problem of declining fertility, which manifested itself in most European countries. In the works of the French demographer A. Landry (1874-1956), the formation of the concept of "demographic transition" begins, in which the types of population reproduction associated with the level of socio-economic development of a particular country are distinguished. This concept was finally formalized in the works of the American scientist F. Notestein (1902-1983), who in 1936 created the first US demographic research center - the Department of Population Studies at Princeton University, and in 1946-1948. was the first Director of the Population Section of the United Nations Bureau of Social Affairs.

Currently, this organization is called the "Population Division of the Department of International Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat". The experts of the Department analyze trends in the size and structure of the population on a global scale, make demographic forecasts for the Earth as a whole, as well as for individual regions and countries, and participate in the creation of scientific demographic centers in developing countries. In fact, the UN Population Division is the most authoritative scientific demographic organization in the modern world. The Division publishes the Population Newsletter and the Population Bulletin of the United Nation, the United Nations Demographic Yearbook and other publications.

Thus, demography as a science has a long history of development. But at the same time, for most of the period of its existence, it was mainly engaged in population accounting and, in fact, was part of statistics (demographic statistics or population statistics). The final separation of demography as an independent science took place only by the middle of the 20th century. At that time, the opinion was finally established that the subject of demography is not just a description of the population, albeit a detailed one, with the identification of various groups and structures, but the identification of patterns of population reproduction. And these patterns are primarily due to socio-historical (socio-economic) factors, although they are based on biological processes. That is, demography belongs to the family of social sciences.

The beginning of demographic research in Russia can be considered the works of mathematicians D. Bernoulli (1700-1782) and L. Euler (1707-1783), who in the second half of the 18th century. conducted mortality studies using probability theory. In the 19th century The development of population studies in Russia proceeded mainly in line with demographic statistics. The result of these works was the organization of the first general census of the population of the Russian Empire in 1897. At the beginning of the 20th century. the main attention is paid to the study of the impact of wars on mortality, fertility and marriage.

After the events of October 1917, civil registration of births, deaths, marriages and divorces began to be established in the country, a general population census was organized in 1926, exemplary for that time. S.A. Novoselsky (1872-1953) and V.V. Paevsky (1893-1934). On their initiative, in 1930, the Demographic Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences was created in Leningrad, which developed the first demographic forecast for the size and sex and age composition of the country's population for the period up to 1951. But in 1934, for ideological reasons, this institute was closed. And demographic research began to be conducted mainly in health care organizations that dealt with medical statistics. Most of the population statistics and research results during this period were classified. Nevertheless, during this period, mass professional training of specialists in the field of population statistics began in the institute created on the initiative of the largest domestic demographer and statistician A.Ya. Boyarsky (1906-1985) Moscow Institute of Economics and Statistics (currently Moscow State University of Statistics and Informatics).

A new surge of interest in true demographic research appeared in our country after the 1959 general census. In 1960, on the initiative of the outstanding Russian demographer B.Ts. Urlanis (1906-1981), who worked at the Institute of Economics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Demographic Section of the House of Scientists of the USSR Academy of Sciences was created. In 1963, the Sector of Demography and Labor Resources was formed at the Research Institute of the Central Statistical Office of the USSR, in which a detailed analysis of the results of the population census was carried out. In 1968, on the initiative of the famous demographer D.I. Valentey (1922-1994), the Center for the Study of Population Problems was organized at the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, where scientific research and training of demographers are combined.

A new stage in the development of domestic demographic science began in the second half of the 1980s, when ideological barriers to conducting research and interpreting their results were removed (but at the same time, state funding for research was soon sharply reduced). In 1988, the Institute of Socio-Economic Problems of Population of the Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Labor (ISEPN RAS) was formed, headed by Academician N.M. Rimashevskaya. This organization conducts research on the population of Russia in many aspects - not only demographic, but also sociological, economic, socio-political. The Institute publishes the quarterly magazine "Population" and the annual report "Russia: the socio-demographic situation". In 1990, the Center for Human Demography and Ecology took shape under the leadership of A.G. Vishnevsky (currently part of the Institute for Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences), which studies a wide range of demographic problems in modern Russia. The Center publishes weekly information bulletins "Population and Society" and annual reports "Population of Russia". In 1992, the Center for Demography was established under the leadership of L.L. Rybakovsky at the Institute of Socio-Political Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where the main attention is paid to the study of migrations and their impact on the reproduction of the population. The Center publishes thematic collections “Problems of Reproduction and Migration of the Population”.

At the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) there is a Scientific Council "Problems of Demography, Migration of Labor Resources".

The chairman of this council is Director of the State Institution "Institute for Macroeconomic Research" (GU IMEI) of the Ministry of Economic and Social Development of the Russian Federation, Professor, Doctor of Economic Sciences Kostakov Vladimir Georgievich, his deputy for scientific work is the Chief Researcher of the Institute for Socio-Political Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISPI GAN) Professor, Doctor of Economic Sciences Rybakovskiy Leonid Leonidovich. At ISPI RAS, he headed the Center for Demography for many years, and is currently the chief consultant of this center, as well as the chairman of the doctoral dissertation council for the defense of candidate and doctoral dissertations in the specialty 08.00.05. – economics and management of the national economy (population economics and demography).

Now the Center for Demography at ISPI RAS is headed by Rybakovsky's student, Professor S. V. Ryazantsev, Doctor of Economics.

ISPI RAS is headed by Doctor of Sociological Sciences, Professor, Corresponding Member of the RAS Kuznetsov V.N.

The Institute for Socio-Economic Problems of the Population of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISEPN RAS) is fully engaged in the issues of demography, as well as other problems related to it. This institute was headed by its founder - the most prominent Russian demographer, doctor of economic sciences, professor, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Rimashevskaya NM, now a scientific consultant.

Among the universities of the Russian Federation, much attention is paid to the demographic training of students at Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov at the Faculty of Economics, where there is a Department of Population, as well as the Laboratory of Demographic Development. Note that this list is not complete, but information can be obtained from the journals Population and Migration in Russia.

Topic: "Reproduction of the population"