Interregional mobility of talent in Spain: The role of job opportunities and qualities of places during the recent economic crisis

Abstract

This paper seeks to extend our knowledge of the drivers behind talented workers' mobility within the Spanish urban system and the patterns they may follow. For this purpose, the stock and flows of creative workers (selected on the basis of either the industry-based or occupational approaches) are studied at different spatial scales while also considering the influence of local characteristics as a source of attracting and retaining forces. The study is based on the analysis of a quite novel longitudinal micro-database from the Spanish Social Security office. Under the conditions of lower mobility of creative workers compared with other geographical contexts -a trend worsened by the economic crisis-we show that job opportunities, especially in connection with workers' social networks, emerge as the most influential attracting factor. Thus, beyond the classic idea that agglomeration economies benefit all residents, we found evidence that the biggest cities, and Madrid in particular, had become "escalator regions", propelling the careers of young creative workers that had been attracted to them. On the contrary, the influence of urban amenities seems limited to the retention of talent. This research aims to contribute to dealing with the challenge of upgrading local productive forces after the economic crisis and to develop tailor-made talent attraction and retention strategies.

Interregional Labor Migration as a Tool to Increase Regional Labor Productivity: The Case of Russia

“…Issues relating to interregional migration are widely covered in recent studies (Benier and Corcoran, 2018;Biagi and Dotzel, 2018;Capasso et al, 2012;Cao et al, 2018;Denisov, 2018;Gerolimetto and Magrini, 2018;Rivera-Batiz, 2018;Simonen, Svento, Karhinen and McCann, 2018), including labor migration (Arntz, 2010;Ding, 2009;Haussen and Uebelmesser, 2018;Moshiri and Moghaddam, 2018;Sanchez-Moral et al, 2018;Simonen et al, 2018;Zhou et al, 2018). Scientific community also pays attention to the problem of migration regulation (Bystrov, Shishaev, Malygina and Khaliullina, 2018;Molinder, 2018;Nuraeny, 2018;Prytkova, 2017).…”

Development, contributions and trends in regional studies in Spain: An overview

“…Excellent examples are the contribution of Méndez, Sánchez‐Moral, Abad, and Garcia () focused on the industrial dynamics and the urban system in Spain and Méndez (2016), considering the impact of the international crisis on cities, as mentioned in a previous section. Other geographers have made excellent contributions to specific problems, as the interregional mobility of talent in Spain and the role of job opportunities and qualities of places during the recent economic crisis (Sánchez‐Moral, Arellano, & Diez Pisonero, ).…”

Descapitalización educativa y segunda oleada de despoblación

“…La emigración del talento local tiene consecuencias negativas para el desarrollo endógeno y alimenta los procesos de acumulación en las áreas receptoras, que se benefician del capital humano importado (González-Leonardo y López-Gay, 2019). La movilidad se explica como una acción racional del individuo para obtener mayores réditos por sus habilidades, que se ven mejor recompensadas en lugares de primer nivel en la jerarquía territorial (Sánchez-Moral et al, 2018).…”