What drives labor migration?

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to measure what are the main driving forces behind internal migration using regional data from Spain. Some of the explanatory variables that will be used are: the average wage of each region, renting costs or unemployment rate among others. The objective is to see the effect and significance of these variables in explaining both the entrance and exit of internal labor migrants for the Spanish regions. I will also try to analyse this effects separating migrants by their educational level and economic sector. Results show that wages, unemployment, and renting costs are significant variables for the overall regional labor mobility, but these driving forces vary by sector and education level.