Towards a behavioral model of a spatial labor market

Migration is increasingly recognized as one of the fundamental processes in geographical analysis—a process that both shapes and reflects the areal differentiation of social systems. Of particular importance is the migration that occurs in response to changes in employment (i. e., labor migration). A variety of models have attempted to describe both the general migration process (see Clark, 1982, for a complete review), as well as the more specialized labor migration process (see Rogerson, 1982). All of these models, however, are deficient in at least two areas. The first arises from the manner in which they conceptualize space; the second is their failure to recognize the importance of person-specific characteristics such as age and job tenure. The model developed in this paper will attempt to address these two shortcomings. First a formulation of space that recognizes its continuous nature will be incorporated into a general model of labor migration. Second, a disaggregate behavioral model of the migrant that recognizes the role of individual characteristics in the decision process will be develope