The growth of the working age population: differences between rural and urban regions across Europe

Differences in the growth of the working age population are affected by the direction and size of migration flows, cohort turnover (the balance between the inflow of young people and the outflow of older people) and mortality. This paper aims to analyse differences in the effects of migration and cohort turnover on changes in the size of the working age population between rural and urban regions on the basis of demographic data for NUTS 2 regions. For this purpose we develop a rural‐urban classification on the basis of the classification for NUTS 3 regions published by Eurostat