**1. Introduction**

The development of rich mineral resources in the Arctic has been of global interest for several decades [1–3]. Five countries with coastal access to the Arctic seas (Canada, USA, Russia, Norway, and Denmark) have long been seeking opportunities to explore and extract or expand their exclusive rights to these resources [1,4]. The development of the Arctic is of grea<sup>t</sup> interest to both business and science communities around the world [5–7], including Russia, which is primarily due to the depletion of proven natural resources in traditional mining regions.

Oil and gas are the most attractive for exploration and production in the Arctic zone, and the sustainable development of the country is impossible without the constant replenishment of proven oil and gas reserves, since 30–40% of the Russian budget depends on oil and gas revenues [5–10]. In addition to hydrocarbon resources, the Arctic territory contains reserves and resources of platinum metals, nickel and cobalt, copper, oil and gas, and so on [11].

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**Citation:** Chanysheva, A.; Kopp, P.; Romasheva, N.; Nikulina, A. Migration Attractiveness as a Factor in the Development of the Russian Arctic Mineral Resource Potential. *Resources* **2021**, *10*, 65. https:// doi.org/10.3390/resources10060065

Academic Editors: Pavel Tcvetkov and Nikolay Didenko

Received: 29 April 2021 Accepted: 15 June 2021 Published: 20 June 2021

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**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

The successful development of technologically complex Arctic fields implies the creation of a technologically modern, competitive industry [12]. With the development of the mining industry, including the oil and gas industry as the largest driver, the Arctic could potentially attract over \$100 billion of investments [13].

Nevertheless, the development of the Arctic mineral resource potential is limited by political, climate, environmental, and other problems [14,15], which are characterized by an outflow of human resources. The rapid population growth that occurred during the Soviet period ceased at the end of the 1980s, after which all regions of the Arctic experienced a sharp decline in population, primarily due to migration outflow.

The need to increase industrial production combined with the reduction in the working-age population is one of the most important problems in the development of the Arctic mineral resource potential, namely, a lack of human resources. Therefore, the study of migration attractiveness as a factor of the successful development of the Arctic mineral resource potential is relevant.

The development of Arctic territories and mineral resource potential, especially the functioning of high-tech industries, is impossible without skilled personnel [16,17]. However, residing in the Arctic is not appealing due to difficult living and working conditions, including a severe climate, poor infrastructure (including healthcare), large distances from economic and cultural centers, and other factors [18–23].

The Arctic presents unique challenges for human occupation, with snow cover for up to 10 months a year, up to 24 h of darkness during the winter, a limited variety of resources, and sea-ice-dependent travel and food [24]. People in the Arctic face many interrelated social and economic challenges that add to the many difficulties of daily life in the region [25].

The regions of the Russian Federation located entirely or partially beyond the Arctic Circle are leaders in terms of the number of people involved in territorial movement. These regions are not very attractive as places of permanent residence and work, which is confirmed by an analysis conducted by the authors. We assume that there is a need to create certain social and economic incentives that compensate for the specific working and living conditions in the Arctic to attract labor resources. The combination of such incentives in the region impacts the level of its socio-economic development and reflects its attractiveness.

The research goal is to identify how the attractiveness of an Arctic region affects the migration of the labor resources necessary to ensure its development. This will allow us to effectively regulate and predict the inflow and outflow of the population in Arctic regions, which is essential for the development of its mineral resource potential.

In the research process, extensive practical materials and academic literature were analyzed. Particular attention was paid to the United Nations Development program and reports, the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy of European Commission report, the report of The Reason Public Policy Institute in the USA, and publications by international experts in scientific electronic and printed journals such as "*Energy Research*", "*Social Science*", "*Marine Policy*", "*Polar Science*", and others.

## **2. Materials and Methods**

In the first stages of the research, desk studies were carried out based on an academic literature review focused on the Arctic resource potential; northern territory development; the definition of the concepts of migration, economic and social attractiveness, and regional competitiveness; and approaches to their assessment. We identified the role of resource potential in the Russian economy and the main challenges and prospects of the Arctic region and analyzed approaches and indicators for assessing regional attractiveness.

The analysis of the literature described above led us to the first research hypothesis:

1. The development of the Arctic mineral resource potential is impossible without qualified personnel, and there is a strong relationship between mining activities and migration processes in the Arctic regions.

To confirm this hypothesis, we investigated key indicators that reflect migration processes in the Russian Arctic regions—the number of arrivals and departures in the region from 2010 to 2019. To this end, we analyzed time series of official state statistics and used a graphical method and arithmetic calculations.

Based on the analysis of migration indicators' dynamics, we formed the second research hypothesis:

2. The migration processes taking place in the Arctic regions depend on the level of attractiveness of the region, which can be determined by a number of social and economic indicators.

In order to choose the number of indicators for assessing the regional economic and social attractiveness, the following process was implemented. In the first stage, the authors reviewed the literature and created a list of the most common quantitative indicators, which were readily found in official Russian statistics. Then, we used an individual expert survey and interviewed representatives from Russian universities and scientific centers (Saint-Petersburg Polytechnical University, Saint-Petersburg Mining University, Saint-Petersburg State University, Kola Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences), as well as representatives from mining and energy companies (PJSC Gazpromneft, PJSC Gazprom). The experts were chosen on the basis of their ability to quickly communicate with the researchers, specific knowledge in the research field, high level of erudition, and industrial or scientific experience. The authors asked the experts to choose 5 social and 5 economic indicators that, in their opinion, could be used to assess regional attractiveness. The survey was conducted online by sending the form (Appendix A) to the participants through email. The information in the responses was processed, and the most frequently mentioned indicators in the experts' answers were selected. Thus, the experts helped the authors to create a list of 12 social and economic indicators affecting the migration attractiveness of the Arctic regions.

Then, we performed a correlation analysis to identify linear relationships between each of the 12 regional attractiveness and migration indicators. Based on the statistical analysis, we identified social and economic indicators that could potentially be used to model migration processes in the Arctic regions.

The third research hypothesis was Equationted as follows:

3. Modern tools of the complex-valued economy can be successfully used to model migration processes in the Arctic regions.

To test this hypothesis, we applied methods for analyzing the complex-valued economy to create econometric models. Four simple linear regression models were formed with the identified social and economic indicators.

Finally, we aimed to determine which of the four Arctic regions under consideration (Murmansk region, Nenets Autonomous district, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous district, and Chukotka Autonomous district) is more appealing to working migrants in terms of its social and economic attractiveness. For this purpose, we converted the value of each indicator to a value on a relative scale using the "maximum–minimum" method. The attractiveness of the regions was assessed by calculating integral indicators as weighted averages of specific social and economic indicators.

The structure of the research is presented in Figure 1.

**Figure 1.** The structure of the research.
