Demographic and social consequences of oil and gas development in Siberia, 1960s-early 1990s

Abstract

The main goal of this thesis is to study the demographic and social consequences of rapid oil and gas development in Siberia, to show the experience of solving or failing to solve of wide range of social and cultural issues, and to sum up the results of both the economic impact on the social-cultural processes and the social impact on industrial production. In three decades, the number of new settlers in the Tyumen province was no less than 2,000,000 people. Such a pace of settling previously uninhabited territories with extreme environmental conditions had never occurred before in world practice. This explosive growth of population, dominated by young single males, has resulted in a distorted demographic structure which is hardly capable of reproduction. The birth rate declined sharply, whereas the death rate grew because of accidents, diseases, alcoholism, narcotics addiction, etc. The situation has been aggravated by complete neglect of the development of a social infrastructure. Nearly half of population live in conditions conducive to the degradation of family, morals, health and cultural values. Oil and gas development had numerous negative effects on indigenous peoples of the North. Destruction of the environment has undermined the natural base and functioning of their traditional occupations. They were unable to adapt to the new kinds of economic activity, and social and physical problems have become aggravated. There has been growth of the disease rate and of alcoholism. The descent into poverty has been rapid, and they find themselves under threat of ethnic degeneration and extinction. It was the initial orientation toward creation of a new but permanent population, the politics of "development through settlement," that proved to be one of the main causes of the deep crisis which has affected the region. The formation of a large, heterogeneous, unstable population, taken together with all its problems, accompanied by the inability to create a favorable social environment, mismanagement of manpower resources and an inadequate social infrastructure, have become the leading causes of production failures in the oil and gas industry.