V techenie dvukh poslednikh desyatiletiy Rossiyskaya Federatsiya nakhoditsya v glubokom demograficheskom krizise, naibolee naglyadnym pokazatelem kotorogo yavlyaetsya absolyutnoe sokrashchenie chislennosti naseleniya strany. Prevyshenie smertnosti nad rozhdaemost'yu, nablyudaemoe v Rossii s 1992 g., yavlyaetsya dolgosrochnym demograficheskim trendom, obuslovlennym ser'yeznoy deformatsiey polovozrastnoy struktury naseleniya. V etikh usloviyakh edinstvennym variantom sokrashcheniya tempov depopulyatsii naseleniya Rossii na srednesrochnuyu perspektivu yavlyaetsya provedenie aktivnoy immigratsionnoy politiki, napravlennoy na privlechenie v stranu zhiteley drugikh gosudarstv. Provedenie takoy politiki tait v sebe mnogo riskov, svyazannykh s sotsial'no-ekonomicheskimi i etnokul'turnymi razlichiyami mezhdu immigrantami i "korennym" naseleniem. Sushchestvuyut razlichnye immigratsionno-naturalizatsionnye kanaly, sistemy adaptatsii i obustroystva migrantov, a takzhe kriterii ikh otbora v zavisimosti ot ekonomiko- geograficheskikh i etnopoliticheskikh faktorov. Immigratsionnaya politika dolzhna byt' differentsirovannoy v zavisimosti ot kategorii immigrantov, ot tseley i srokov ikh prebyvaniya v Rossii.