Human capital of the new Arctic region in the conditions of implementation of the preferential regime of entrepreneurial activity

Managing the development of the Arctic macro-region faces a set of external and internal challenges to its development. One of the key ones is the growing discrepancy between the characteristics of existing human capital, current conditions of its reproduction and the future needs of the economy of the Russian Arctic, reflected in strategic and policy documents. The purpose of this study is to identify qualitative and quantitative aspects of human capital reproduction in the new Arctic region – the Karelian Arctic. This region requires research in the context of the new economic and administrative realities of its development. A comprehensive economic and sociological toolkit was used, which included a questionnaire survey of the population (n = 1102). The results of the study show generally negative trends in the reproduction of human capital in the Karelian Arctic. Generally unfavorable, although spatially differentiated, are the conditions of the environment in which this reproduction takes place. The quintessence of its condition is the narrow perceived horizon of income planning by individuals, as well as the locally pronounced mismatch between the education received and the work performed. The most important measure seems to be the revision of educational programs in educational institutions of the Arctic regions in the direction of meeting the needs of promising projects of residents of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation.