The Purpose of this study is to describe and analyze the magnitude and direction of the appreciable internal migration that occurred in Russia during the last decades of the nineteenth century. The first part of the article is a description of regional migration patterns, the second part an analysis of these patterns, primarily in terms of economic differentials.
Migration is a complex phenomenon. The supply of migrants to an area is related to such factors as income, distance, size of population, distribution of information, social and cultural amenities, location of resources, and government policy. Some factors may influence potential migrants more than others at a particular stage of economic development. Economic factors seem to be crucial, especially in the early stages of economic development. A useful way to interpret economic data is to compare income differences between areas. Specifically, we shall analyze the relationship between migration by guberniia and differences in indicators of income as inferred from socioeconomic data.