EMPLOYMENT CHANGE, JOB ACCESS AND M IGRATION PAPER PREPARED FOR THE 39TH EUROPEAN CONGRESS OF THE REGIONAL SCIENCE

In this paper three elements are connected: employment change, job access and labour related migration. The Dutch economic urban landscape has developed into a polynucleated urban structure in which urban concentrations of employment opportunities are located at relatively short distance from each other. Recently, trends of deconcentration of total employment opportunities and at the same time concentration of high qualified and specialised jobs in urban nuclei can be observed. The resulting spatial distribution of job opportunities has an influence on job access at the individual level. Good job access from the residence increases the probability that someone finds a suitable job at relatively short distance. This means there is less ‘need ’ for human capital related migration from locations with good job access. In the paper, the hypothesis is tested that regional differences in human capital related migration can be fully explained by variation in job access. The bivariate analysis showed that human capital related migration is lowest in the Randstad and highest in the more peripheral regions. To test whether these regional differences can be explained by regional differences in job access, a multivariate regression model has been used. The results show that not region explains th