Issue № 72. February 2019

State Regulation of Migrants Social Adaptation: Current Issues

Andrei V. Zavialov — Assistant Professor, Department of Social Psychology and Humanities, Irkutsk State Medical University; Post-graduate Studies Alumnus, Institute of Social Sciences, Irkutsk State University, Irkutsk, the Russian Federation.
E-mail: zavialovandrijko@yandex.ru

The article examines the processes of migrants social adaptation through the prism of post-Soviet Russia migration policy. The transformations of migration policy and their indirect influence on the social adaptation of migrants due to the lack of direct mechanisms for regulating the migrants social adaptation are analyzed. The article focuses on Russia migration policy in the 1990s–early 2000s and its influence on the social adaptation of migrants, which was distinguished by unprecedented liberalism, and then was replaced by the prohibitive policy in the early 2000s — strict regulation of presence and legalization of foreigners. A positive factor in the migration policy transformation is the State Program for the Resettlement to the Russian Federation of Compatriots Living Abroad, which has become the first program in Russia to attract people wishing to gain a foothold, since it provides a whole range of measures for the migrants economic adaptation. Meanwhile, the social adaptation of migrants remains a problematic part of the adaptation process due to the relatively high level of migrant-phobia in society and a number of unsolved problems. Among the problems of Russia contemporary migration policy, the author considers the so-called “catching up” model, when the state reacts to a situation already occurring, and does not foresee it; moreover, a large number of different prohibitive measures are not conducive to quick adaptation. The Russia migration policy in the field of regulating the social adaptation of migrants requires substantial adjustments to simplify the latter. The final part of the article discusses a number of measures that could contribute to speeding up and smoothing the migrants’ social adaptation processes (countering illegal immigration, changes in the quota system, regional migration policy options, promotion of highly educated immigrants, Russian language groups for migrants children, development of information bases for migrants, protection of the migrants rights, creation of conditions for the disadvantage of tax concealment, medical insurance, working with national cultural organizations, working with the journalistic community, etc.). As a conclusion, the author says that changing the Russia migration policy , especially in the field of migrants social adaptation, will contribute to further deepening the analysis of sociological understanding system of the migrants social adaptation processes and the management of migrants adaptation processes in the host society, and therefore will make social adaptation of migrants smoother, more flexible and more stable, and will increase the level of interaction between the host society and migrants.

Keywords

Social adaptation of migrants, migration policy, migrants, compatriots, government regulation of migration processes.