HOW DOES SEGREGATION CONTEXT CHANGE AS
A RESULT OF DIFFERENT MIGRATION FLOWS OR IMMOBILITY:
THE CASE OF TALLINN
Kadi MÄGI, Kadri LEETMAA, Tiit TAMMARU & Maarten van HAM
University of Tartu, Estonia, kadi.magi@ut.ee, kadri.leetmaa@ut.ee, tiit.tammaru@ut.ee
Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, m.vanham@tudelft.nl
Belonging to the Soviet Union and accompanying immigration from other Soviet
republics was the main reason why predominantly Russian-speaking immigrant
population lived in Estonia in the beginning of the 1990s. At the times of their arrival
Russian-speaking immigrant population were mainly accomodated in certain areas of
the country – major cities in the settlement system and within cities in large housing
estates built during the Soviet years. For this reason the immigrant population lived
concentrated in the settlement system and segregated in the cities by the end of
Soviet period.
The main objective of this research is to find out whether the characteristics of the
living environment of Estonians and Russian-speakers remain ethnically similar after
moving inside the city (Tallinn) or out of the city (suburbanisation and
counterurbanisation) or is migration a process that favours spatial assimilation of
formerly separately living minority population.
The research uses the longitudinal database based on the 2000 and 2011 Census.
The main results demonstrated that migration remarkably shaped the ethnic
segregation while moving inside the city or leaving from Estonian capital city. The
destinations of Estonians and Russian-speakers were different. Although for minority
group the out-migration from Tallinn could bring along spatial assimilation since the
share of minorities is lower outside of the capital city, immigrant population still mainly
moved to the areas where they could find familiar ethnic environment. Thus, the
ethnic composition of the living environments of the Russian-speaking minority
population do not change drastically after migration.