printBasic Social Infrastructure in Populated Areas of Russia and the Dynamics of Their Population
Karachurina L.B.
Cand. Sci. (Geogr.), Assoc. Prof., Deputy Director, Vishnevsky Institute of Demography of the HSE University, Moscow, Russia. lkarachurina@hse.ru
Mkrtchyan N.V.
Cand. Sci. (Geogr.), Leading Research Fellow, Vishnevsky Institute of Demography of the HSE University, Moscow, Russia. nmkrtchyan@hse.ru
The publication was prepared within the framework of the Academic Fund Program at HSE University. Project No. 25-00-011.
Karachurina L.B., Mkrtchyan N.V. Basic Social Infrastructure in Populated Areas of Russia and the Dynamics of Their Population. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2025. No 5. P. 109-124
Receiving education and healthcare services is a basic need of the population, therefore, providing the population with access to social infrastructure institutions (various types of schools, preschool institutions, hospitals, rural outpatient clinics) is an important task of regional and municipal authorities. If by “access” we mean “the availability of social infrastructure at the place of residence”, then problems with it can be observed in small populated settlements of Russia. The presented study analyzes how settlements of different sizes are provided with above types of institutions; what are the shares of the population who have and do not have the opportunity to receive these services in their settlements. 16.7 thousand settlements in Russia are analyzed, representing 226 municipalities in 79 regions of the country. Their population is estimated based on data from the All- Russian Population Censuses of 2010 and 2021. The database of educational and healthcare institutions was formed on the basis of open Internet sources and verified. According to calculations, secondary schools were in 13.7% of settlements, basic schools – in 5.3%, primary schools – in 1%, kindergartens – in 13.1%. Healthcare institutions of various types are more widely represented, they are in 32.4% of settlements. Despite the low indicators of provision of settlements with social infrastructure institutions, the concentration of the population in larger settlements contributes to the fact that the provision of the population “at the place of residence” with them is significantly higher. In 2021, 90.9% of the population of the selected municipalities lived in settlements with a secondary or basic school. In settlements provided with at least a rural outpatient clinic, 93.4% of the population.
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