Preserving Human Capital in Eastern Russia: The Lives of Teachers and HealthCare Professionals After the May Decrees

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article considers several socioeconomic processes to analyze changes in the social services of federal subjects in the south of the Russian Far East and Baikal region following the reforms initiated by President Putin’s 2012 May Decrees. According to the Romer–Lucas model, increasing knowledge and improving the quality of human capital are key conditions for the long-term development of territories; therefore, the state of health care and education is one of the most important factors in solving the geopolitical problems of eastern Russian. Research has shown that at least in the public sector the recent reform of the social services has failed to improve the individual wealth of workers or to increase the availability of education and health care services. This is equally true for the border regions, where the new measures caused institutional transformations, and for the Baikal region, which was “not covered” by these measures. The results of the study confirmed the thesis that in the regional policy of the East, it is important to emphasize the quality rather than quantity of investment—the extent to which it improves the basic conditions determining the citizens’ quality of life.