The survey showed a sharp decrease in the number of people wishing to emigrate from Russia: “Let’s sit out”

“We don’t need the Turkish coast” – this is how the majority of fellow citizens answered the questions of a special social survey devoted to emigrant moods in Russia. Only 15% expressed their desire to leave. In people, “civil identity has increased under the influence of an external threat,” sociologists conclude. Other experts see other reasons.

The Global Study of Emigrant Sentiment was a global project among 57 countries, in which Russia also participated. In the Russian Federation, 1.5 thousand people took part in the study, and a total of 54 thousand were interviewed in the world. Everyone was asked a single question: “If you were provided with all the necessary documents, would you like to live in another country or would you prefer to stay where you are?”

The desire to leave Russia for residence in another country was expressed by 15% of the respondents. In December 2021, 20% of our compatriots answered this question in the affirmative. “This is the strengthening of civic identity under the influence of an external threat, psychological defense mechanisms that support hope for the best, as well as real or imagined stigmatization of those who left both abroad and within the country,” interprets the result of social psychologist, professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences Timofey Nestik.

For comparison, the report of sociologists shows the shares of emigrant sentiment in other countries. It turns out that today we have a little more people who want to look for a better life than in Vietnam (8%) and India (4%) – they took first and second places in the ranking, while Russia turned out to be third.

In countries where economic indicators per capita are higher than the world average (including Russia), the percentage of people who are inclined to emigrate is much higher. 30% want to emigrate from France, 36% from Great Britain, 37% from Italy. The United States and Germany earned 33% each in this survey. And most of all those who dream of leaving are in Africa. In Sierra Leone, 84% answered yes to the scientists’ question, in Ghana 81%, and in Nigeria 71%.

On average, the study identified three reasons for the outcomes of the countries of their inhabitants. From developing countries with their poverty, social upheavals and armed conflicts, they move far and wide in search of a better life. The second reason is the development of relocation, which, oddly enough, was facilitated by covid. People, especially young people, have realized that they can work from anywhere in the world. The third factor was the search for new horizons for the successful and solvent. For example, the desire to transfer your business to a country where taxes are not so high. This explains the high percentage of dissatisfied and willing to change their place of residence in the old Europe and the United States.

“Wanting to leave does not mean emigrating,” says sociologist Pavel Kruglov. – There is only one question in the study, which is strange in itself, and it is posed somehow abstractly. Nevertheless, it can be said that a number of factors could have influenced such a low level of emigrant sentiment in Russia. A certain part of the population, especially from the IT sector, as we know, has already left the country. That is, roughly speaking, there are fewer people willing to leave, because some people with a similar attitude have already left. Even a certain number of those who did not have such an attitude before left. There is no official data on this matter, but, according to rough estimates, in two waves – after February 24 and after September 21, when mobilization was announced, from 500-700 thousand people to a million left the country.

Another accompanying factor I would call the “fading effect” in the social aspect. Let’s sit out, wait, what will happen, where to move when this happens … A kind of apathy, inertial behavior in an extreme situation – our society is prone to it. In addition, social propaganda is strong, especially on television. It essentially proclaims the priority of the public, collective over the personal, individual. Someone begins to think that it can be dangerous, that it is uncomfortable there, but only at home – right and good.

“Now it has become very difficult to conduct surveys, many are afraid to participate,” says Vasily, a 3rd year bachelor student from Moscow. “Especially now, everyone is interested in topics at least a little near the events of the last year. And they don’t want to pass tests on paper – you can read the handwriting. And electronic surveys require registration. I know that now all questionnaires (sociologists who conduct research. – Auth.) experience difficulties: people simply shy away from them. Not all, of course. Some, on the contrary, are “charged” – they run to answer, they describe everything in detail. But those whose thoughts are somehow different from the “TV” are afraid to broadcast them. And here they could be afraid: now they are shaming those who left everywhere, they want to deprive them of their property, and so on.

For example, on the eve of the forum I saw a discussion of a sociological survey in a pedagogical university in Yekaterinburg. It was for full-time students there for some courses, on the website of the university, anonymous. But under their passwords, at the same time. Questions included the topic of departures and mobilization. Everyone there shared with each other life hacks on how not to take the survey…

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 28968 dated February 9, 2023

Newspaper headline:
And I will go to the village to my grandfather