Entry into working life: Internal migration and the job match quality of higher‐educated graduates

We estimate the impact of internal migration on job‐match quality for recent Dutch university and college graduates. We find positive yet modest wage returns. After controlling for the self‐selection of migrants with an IV approach, this effect is no longer significant for university graduates and all graduates from peripheral areas. We also find that, for our alternative job‐match measures, where there is evidence of migrant self‐selection, controlling for self‐selection strongly reduces the effect of internal migration on job‐match quality. In some cases, the returns on internal migration are found to be negative, which may signal forced migration.     

Highly qualified rural youth: why do young graduates return to their home region?

This paper addresses the motivations underlying migration decision-making in the case of young university graduates returning to their rural home region in Switzerland. Empirical results show the joint role of social ties, living environment, and job opportunities, although the weight given to each of these factors varies between graduates. Some strategies used by the graduates to cope with a limited labour market are furthermore identified. I argue that internal migrations are far from being the sole consequence of labour market conditions and that a greater appreciation of non-economic issues is needed.     

我国大学生就业城市选择意愿及其影响因素分析

引导大学生合理的就业流动是促进各类城市协调发展的有效途径。本文以不同类型的就业城市为研究对象,通过全国7个城市的1600余份调查问卷,利用多项Logit模型分析了我国大学生就业城市的选择意愿及影响因素。研究表明,大学生倾向以自身生源地为界限对劳动市场的地域进行二元划分,职业发展机遇和家庭因素在就业地的选择中最为重要,地区特质和自然生态环境的影响最弱,生源地和个人观念都与就业地的选择显著相关。在此基础上提出引导大学生就业流动的政策建议。     

SOME EVIDENCE THAT WOMEN ARE MORE MOBILE THAN MEN: GENDER DIFFERENCES IN U.K. GRADUATE MIGRATION BEHAVIOR

ABSTRACT.  In this paper we employ dichotomous, multinomial and conditional logit models to analyze the employment-migration behavior of some 380,000 U.K. university graduates. By controlling for a range of variables related to human capital acquisition and local economic conditions, we are able to distinguish between different types of sequential migration behavior from domicile to higher education and on to employment. Our findings indicate that U.K. female graduates are generally more migratory than male graduates. We suggest that the explanation for this result lies in the fact that migration can be used as a partial compensation mechanism for gender bias in the labor market.     

Competition for talent: retaining graduates in the Euregio Meuse-Rhine

Graduates are considered a convenient source of human capital in today’s knowledge-based economy. It is therefore crucial to understand what drives their mobility intentions to retain larger numbers of graduates. This is particularly true for peripheral regions, which need to compete with economic centres that are assumed to be more attractive. This paper adds a euregional perspective to the existing literature on graduate migration by investigating whether or not students intend to stay in the Euregio Meuse-Rhine (EMR) after graduation. It takes into account the role of hard and soft locational factors, social factors as well as individual characteristics in shaping future graduates’ mobility preferences. Using survey data from 2015 from five higher education institutions in the EMR, this paper finds that mobility intentions are determined by students’ perceptions of the quality of life, openness and career opportunities in the euroregion. In addition, distance to the partner and other social ties such as family and friends influence migration intentions.     

Rural Youth Migration Trends in Australia: an Overview of Recent Trends and Two Inland Case Studies

Much of what has been written on the topic of Australian rural youth migration trends and processes has often proceeded from data‐free, or data‐poor grounds. In this context, this paper analyses recent trends in youth (15 to 24 years of age) migration for a temporally‐consistent set of Statistical Divisions (SDs) in inland rural Australia, and for local government areas within the Northern Tablelands and Slopes and Ranges of northern New South Wales and the Western Australian Central Wheatbelt. The paper finds that rates of youth loss from rural regions have increased over the past twenty years. Yet the patterns, processes, causes and impacts of rural youth migration are distributed in a spatially‐uneven fashion. Some remote areas are receiving net migration gains while booming ‘sea change’ coastal regions have experienced heavy losses. While the ‘flight to the bright city lights’ syndrome is evident, relatively high proportions of young people in the Northern SD of NSW move within their immediate region. Nevertheless, some common understandings concerning youth mobility were also confirmed. Gender differentials in migration propensity between women and men are evident even at quite local scales. Young people are also more likely to search out capital cities than the rest of the population. Most inland areas still continue to experience heavy losses of local youth. A more precise understanding of rural youth migration trends is an important stepping stone in the establishment of a reinvigorated research effort into young rural people's perspectives of their changing life chances in their home communities.     

Human capital sorting: The “when” and “who” of the sorting of educated workers to urban regions

The sorting of high‐ability workers is often advanced as one source of spatial disparities in economic outcomes. There are still few papers that analyze when human capital sorting occurs and whom it involves. Using data on 16 cohorts of university graduates in Sweden, we demonstrate significant sorting to urban regions on high school grades and education levels of parents, i.e., two attributes typically associated with latent abilities that are valued in the labor market. A large part of this sorting has already occurred in deciding where to study, because the top universities in Sweden are predominantly located in urban regions. The largest part of directed sorting on ability indicators occurs in the decision of where to study. Even after controlling for sorting prior to labor market entry, the “best and brightest” are still more likely to start working in urban regions. However, this effect appears to be driven by Sweden's main metropolitan region, Stockholm. We find no influence of our ability indicators on the probability of starting to work in urban regions after graduation when Stockholm is excluded. Studies of human capital sorting need to account for selection processes to and from universities, because neglecting mobility prior to labor market entry is likely to lead to an underestimation of the extent of the sorting to urban regions.     

COLLEGE-TO-WORK MIGRATION OF TECHNOLOGY GRADUATES AND HOLDERS OF DOCTORATES WITHIN THE UNITED STATES

ABSTRACT.  This study estimates a series of random parameter logit models of the college-to-work migration decisions of technology graduates and holders of doctorates within the United States. We employ detailed information on the migration-relevant characteristics of individuals, as well as on their actual origins and destinations at the metropolitan scale. In addition to its obvious implications for "brain drain" policies in U.S. metropolitan areas, the study demonstrates the richness of the random parameters technique for behavioral-geographic analysis. We find that science and technology graduates migrate to better educated places, other things equal; that PhD graduates pay greater attention to amenity characteristics than other degree holders; and that foreign students from some immigrant groups migrate to places where those groups are concentrated.     

Employability of German Geography Graduates: The Mismatch between Knowledge Acquired and Competences Required

The employability of university graduates is a concern in higher education as labour markets change more and more rapidly. This is of particular relevance for multi-faceted subjects such as geography. Studies on employability have to consider to what degree a university education helps graduates start a career. The results of a survey of 257 geography graduates of JLU (Justus Liebig University) Giessen, Germany, indicate that the traditional curricula did not necessarily prepare German geographers adequately for their jobs. The graduates possess more knowledge than required but lack important competences and transferable skills that the job market demands. This may be partly remedied by the introduction of project-oriented classes.     

REPRODUCING AND RESHAPING ETHNIC RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION IN STOCKHOLM: THE ROLE OF SELECTIVE MIGRATION MOVES

This paper deals with the issues of selective migration moves, and the production and reproduction of immigrantdense neighbourhoods in Stockholm, Sweden. It has been shown earlier that selective migration, that is, socioeconomic and ethnic differences between those leaving, entering and staying in so‐called deprived neighbourhoods, reproduces these neighbourhoods' characteristics of being poor and immigrant dense. Key concepts launched to inform such studies and derived from the US segregation discourse are “white fight” and “white avoidance”, meaning that native people (or white people in the US case) tend to leave neighbourhoods experiencing growing numbers of immigrants (black people) and which they also tend to avoid moving into such neighbourhoods. Using a complete set of geo‐coded longitudinal individual data for the 2005–2008 Stockholm County population, this paper contributes to our understanding of ethnic differences in the intra‐urban migration system. Three empirical questions are addressed: what individual characteristics distinguish (1) those who move into neighbourhoods experiencing rapidly increasing immigrant densities from those moving elsewhere in the urban region; (2) those who leave neighbourhoods experiencing rapidly increasing immigrant densities from those who stay put; (3) those who move in the direction of higher immigrant densities from those moving into lower densities? Results from multivariate statistical analyses provide support for the avoidance hypothesis but less support for the fight hypothesis. When controlling for a range of individual and neighbourhood attributes there is clear evidence that native‐born Swedes are less inclined than most immigrant categories to move into immigrant dense areas while ethnic origin does not seem to matter much when explaining who leaves such areas.     

GRAVITY AND SPATIAL STRUCTURE: THE CASE OF INTERSTATE MIGRATION IN MEXICO*

ABSTRACT The estimation of gravity models of internal (aggregate) place‐to‐place migration is plagued with endogeneity (omitted‐variable) biases if the unobserved effects of spatial structure are not accounted for. To address this econometric problem, this paper presents a more general specification of the gravity model, which allows for (bilateral) parameter heterogeneity across individual migration paths—along with (unilateral) origin‐ and destination‐specific effects. The resultant “three‐way fixed‐effects” (3FE) model is applied for an analysis of interstate migration in Mexico based on cross‐sectional data. To overcome parameter‐dimensionality problems (due to limited or incomplete information), the 3FE model is estimated using the Generalized Maximum Entropy (GME) estimator. The empirical implications of this new modeling strategy are illustrated by contrasting the 3FE‐GME estimates with those for the traditional and two‐way fixed‐effects (2FE) models. The former are far more plausible and intuitively interpretable than their traditional and 2FE counterparts, with parameter estimates changing in expected directions. The (average) effect of the migrant stock is markedly smaller than usually estimated, providing a more realistic measure of network‐induced migration. Migration outflows from centrally located origins have significantly steeper distance decay. Path‐specific distance effects exhibit directional asymmetries and spatial similarities.     

PLACE ELASTICITY: EXPLORING A NEW CONCEPTUALIZATION OF MOBILITY AND PLACE ATTACHMENT IN RURAL AMERICA

Migration and place attachment are often coupled within the migration decision‐making literature with the underlying assumption that individuals with strong place attachments are less likely to migrate than individuals with weaker ties to place. As communication technologies have improved, however, new forms of place attachment and connections between individuals and places are evolving. We introduce the concept of place elasticity as a new conceptualization of place attachment made possible by innovations in communication and transportation technologies. Place elasticity allows individuals to live in distant locales while maintaining close interaction with a particular place. We explore this concept with questionnaires and interviews from a sample of individuals from rural Appalachian counties in eastern Kentucky. Rural residents of this region have been noted for their strong place attachments and connections to their home county. Based on our questionnaires and interviews from family reunions we propose that place elasticity has three distinct characteristics: portability, strong place bonds, and permanence and that these traits allow individuals to remain connected to home counties and family, thereby allowing migration and settlement in distant locations with minimal loss of connectedness.     

SPATIAL DIFFERENTIATION OF POPULATION DEVELOPMENT IN A DECLINING REGION: THE CASE OF SAARLAND

We increasingly understand the causes of population decline: these can be, among others, processes of deindustrialization, decreasing fertility or the succession of a city through the stages of urban life as the city matures. However, we are still insufficiently able to explain why differences still exist between cities within regions experiencing the same macro‐processes and between cities of the same “level of maturity”. This research addresses this intra‐regional differentiation in population development in the declining former mining region of Saarland (Germany). Quantitative and qualitative analysis reveals that the differentiation in current decline stems from (1) the differentiated population development trajectories of the past, with a massive population boom followed by an aged and declining population in the industrial municipalities; and (2) the spatial distribution of amenities over the region; and (3) the spatial distribution and accessibility of housing opportunities steering migration flows. The latter are not necessarily concentrated in those areas that are attractive. Rather, the distribution of these housing opportunities strictly follows the planning logic of the supra‐local institutional framework, with a concentration of housing within easy access of major transportation infrastructure and in larger centres. The case study thus reveals that the mechanisms behind this intraregional differentiation are much more complex than often portrayed in the urban development and decline debate.     

COMPARATIVE GEOGRAPHY OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE USSR: AN INITIAL INVESTIGATION

Several aspects of the distribution of institutions of higher education and their graduates are compared for the Soviet Union and the United States. The concentration of institutions and students is found to be greater in the USSR. Differences in regional enrollment rates relative to the location of institutions and students may be partly explained by differences in the curriculum structure of American and Soviet institutions of higher education and the greater degree of local control over higher education in the United States. A direct relationship exists in both countries between the percentage of graduates in a region and percentage urban and per capita income. Regional inequality in the percentage of graduates in urban versus rural areas is much greater in the USSR while regional inequality in the percentage of male and female graduates was only somewhat greater in the United States. Level of urbanization, migration of students and graduates, economic opportunity and economic structure are seen as important factors helping explain regional variation in the distribution of graduates.     

Subsidizing Migration? Mexican Agricultural Policies and Migration to the United States

Migration theories often ignore the role that states play in stimulating migration through public assistance policies. Using the case of Mexico, this article explores the role of the state as a migrant‐producing actor by examining the relationship between migration and social assistance policies in the form of monetary cash transfers. It argues that direct, unconditional cash transfers, like those provided by agricultural programs such as Procampo, rather than providing the incentives needed to retain individuals in their home country, may instead be providing the resources needed to migrate, particularly if the amount of the transfer is insufficient to spur investment. Instead of discouraging migration by enhancing economic opportunities and reducing poverty, such policies can actually make it easier and more appealing for its beneficiaries to migrate.     

“Brain Drain” or “Brain Gain”? Students’ Loyalty to their Student Town: Field Evidence from Norway

In the global economy regions fight a two-front “war” to attract young people. On the one hand, they compete against more urban areas because young people leave home to study and do not return to their home region (“brain drain”). On the other hand, they struggle to attract new residents, students and entrepreneurs to their local region (“brain gain”). The context is a student town of a strong industrial region characterized by a net export of young people and an increasing demand for highly qualified labour. The purpose is to gain insight into how student loyalty to a student town may be enhanced. A partial least square path modelling approach is used to estimate a structural equation model of student town loyalty. One finding is that the creation of student town satisfaction has more influence on student town loyalty than reputation building. “Social activity” is the most important loyalty driver. This antecedent is mediated through student town satisfaction and reputation, as well as university college reputation. The town municipalities and the university college should thus be coordinated in their effort to increase student town loyalty to bring down the “brain drain” and increase the “brain gain” in the region.     

北京低收入大学毕业生聚居体研究——唐家岭现象及其延续

随着中国城市化进程进入快速增长时期,低收入大学毕业生社会群体在城市的生存状况成为政治家和科学家关注的焦点。本文主要根据现有文献资料,配合笔者实地调研,进行北京低收入大学毕业生聚居体研究,尤其就北京唐家岭现象及其延续效应进行分析,主要涉及北京低收入大学毕业生聚居体现况、社会特征、群体聚居村落和后续空间效应等。文章认为:北京低收入大学毕业生聚居体是2000年以来、继下岗职工、农民工之后,中国城市化进程中形成的第三大社会弱势群体。北京低收入大学毕业生聚居体产生的原因,首先是低工资就业市场,其次是高房租租赁市场。他们是弱势社会群体,需要全社会的关注和帮助,在目前中国发展阶段,彻底改造甚至消灭这样的聚居体是没有必要的。     

Quedlinburg—10 Years on the World Heritage List: East–West Transformations of a Small Historic Town in Central Germany

While the conservation efforts and constraints in the medieval town of Quedlinburg are typical of the conditions in the smaller historic towns in the former German Democratic Republic, they also resemble those of small heritage towns in other countries. Shifts and changes are assessed for a time frame of about 25 years, before and after the pivotal event of German reunification of 1990. Located in a previously prosperous but now depressed region with more than 20% unemployment, Quedlinburg has suffered from the breakdown of the former agricultural and other industries in the region after 1990 and subsequent out‐migration. Some valuable historic buildings were lost before 1990, owing to neglect and lack of funding. Since then, improved funding, combined with public–private partnership, has helped the town to make very considerable conservation progress. The town’s World Heritage status since 1994 has been utilised as a significant supporting factor in tourism promotion, which has become an important part of the ongoing conservation processes.     

‘They shut them out the road’: Migration,mental health and the Scottish highlands

There is a small literature tackling migration and mental health, but less is said about the migration of people with mental health problems (incipient or diagnosed). The present paper considers what might be claimed about such migration, particularly when entailing movement into rural and remote areas where lack of anonymity, high social visibility and certain differences in how ‘locals’ and ‘incomers’ are treated may have serious consequences for those displaying psychological and behavioural differences. Drawing upon qualitative evidence from in‐depth interviewing of in‐migrants with mental health problems living in the Scottish Highlands, light is thrown on the connections between their problems and the decision to relocate to this predominantly rural region. Attention also focuses on dissonances between expectations regarding their new situation and their actual experiences of it in terms of both natural landscapes and, more importantly here, social milieux. There are further implications for changing regional attitudes towards mental health, suggesting certain impacts that arise not just from the in‐migration of people themselves who have mental health problems, but also from the ideas and practices that they often carry with them.     

The success–failure dichotomy revisited: young adults' motives to return to their rural home region

Researchers are increasingly aware that nonlinear perspectives of the transition into adulthood and non-economic motives, such as family and friends, may help to improve our understanding of young adults' migration decisions. This paper combines these new insights with the traditional economic success–failure arguments in order to explain young adults' return migration to their rural home region. We present four orientations in return motives: the social, family, functional and partner orientation. They consist of different combinations of the stereotypical success–failure arguments with non-serial transitional stages, and with different attachments to the home region. They also show that in some cases, return migration should actually be interpreted as staying in the home region, because the young adult returnees had not mentally left the region. We therefore state that our results provide a solid argument for reinterpreting the out-migration of young people from rural areas.