Labour market performance and determinants of migration by gender and region of origin

This paper examines the impact of labour market performance on interregional migration decisions in Finland. The focus is on the correlation between unobservable productivity factors in regions of origin and destination. Bivariate probit models are estimated separately by gender and region of origin. The results suggest that person-specific productivity has hardly any impact on the likelihood of migration, except for females living in peripheral regions: women with the poorest local prospects decide to migrate. It is concluded that peripheral regions are not necessarily losing their more productive workers.

Gender Differences in Self-Employment in Finnish Regions

Many studies show that gender predicts entries into self-employment – females are typically a minority of self-employed. Men also have a higher probability of remaining in business than women. In many countries, however, females represent the fastest growing segment among the self-employed. The reasons that lead women and men to enter self-employment can be very different, and may also differ between regions. A well-known but little understood fact is that rates of entrepreneurship exhibit pronounced and persistent variations across regions. The specification and understanding of regional entrepreneurial environments remains a complex issue. The aim of this paper is to throw some light on gender differences in entrepreneurship in Finland and its regions. Are there gender differences in self-employment rates, and if there are, for what reason? How do female entrepreneurs differ from male entrepreneurs with regard to predicted income, personal and household characteristics, assets, prior activity and industry? What is the husband’s role in the household? Personal characteristics such as family size, marital status, and the presence and ages of children may play different role for women than they do for men. We intend to apply the structural probit model to female self-employment in order to test the hypothesis whether an individual is more likely to be self-employed the greater is the predicted relative income in self-employment. Our data set is based on a Longitudinal Census File and the Longitudinal Employment Statistics File constructed by Statistics Finland. Since 1987, the two basic files are updated annually in Finland. These two register-based data sets, together with some other registers, provide panel data on each resident of Finland, from which a 7 per cent random sample is taken for this study. The data set is very rich including hundreds and hundreds of variables for 1987-2002.

The effect of polytechnic reform on migration

This paper examines the effect of polytechnic reform on geographical mobility. A polytechnic, higher education reform took place in Finland in the 1990s. It gradually transformed former vocational colleges into polytechnics and also brought higher education to regions that did not have a university before. This expansion of higher education provides exogenous variation in the regional supply of higher education. We find that the reform increased the migration of high school graduates. The migration propensities increased particularly close to graduation from high school, but some results also suggest a smaller positive effect over a longer period.Migration; higher education; school reform; polytechnics; high school graduates

Migration Behaviour and Duration of Residence Spells of Graduating Students in Finland in 1987-2002

An interesting, but yet largely unstudied question concerns migration behaviour in different labour markets from the point of view of duration. How long are residenece spells? Why do some migrants move quite soon after the move, while others stay for a long time? How do personal and family characteristics account for differences in residence spells and repeat migration? Does earlier migration experience or other prior activity or experience explain for this? What is the role of labour market conditions and other region-specific factors? This paper deals with migration behaviour in Finland in 1987-2002. Migration will be analyzed in a duration-model context where movement is seen as terminating an observed residence spell. The data set is based on a Longitudinal Census File and the Longitudinal Employment Statistics File constructed by Statistics Finland. Since 1987, the two basic files are updated annually. These two register-based data sets, together with some other registers, provide panel data on each resident of Finland, from which a 7 per cent random sample bas been taken for this study. The longitudinal data allow us to observe changes of residence and the length of spells remaining in new location. The data set is very rich including hundreds and hundreds of variables for each year. The individual level panel data will be transformed and pooled into a sample of residence spells that began during the period 1988-2001. The maximum of the observed duration of possibly right-censored residence spells if fourteen years. The duration data is interval censored (grouped) – the status of residence spell is only observed at the end of each year. Therefore, discrete time representation for the hazard rate is used. Duration dependence is measured with a set of covariates. Depending on the character of the covariate, the measurement time varies among the variables: some covariates such as sex or parental variables do not change in time, some are measured on year before the residence spell or at the outset of the spell, and the rest such as age, level of education, marital status, family size and regional unemployment are treated as time-varying.

The effect of education on migration: Evidence from school reform

A polytechnic, higher education reform took place in Finland in the 1990s. It gradually transformed former vocational colleges into polytechnics and expanded higher education to all Finnish regions. We implement instrumental variables estimators that exploit the exogenous variation in the regional availability of polytechnic education together with matriculation exam scores. Our IV results show that polytechnic graduates have a higher migration probability than those of vocational college graduates. However, a master’s degree did not increase migration propensity in comparison with a polytechnic degree. We also find that an increase in the availability of polytechnic education did not reduce migration.Migration; higher education; polytechnic reform; IV estimation

Can migration decisions be affected by income taxation policies?

In this empirical paper we examine whether or not migration decisions can be affected by individual measures of regional policy. To shed light on the question, we study formation of expected earnings and effect of expected earnings on interregional migration decisions in Finland. We consider how this effect varies among individuals, especially among employees in medical and health care sector and in teaching sector. We generated expected earnings in migration and staying alternatives from an endogenous switching regression. These expected earnings were used as additional explanatory variables in a random parameter logit migration model. In the migration model individual can choose between three alternatives: (s)he can either (i) stay in current region, (ii) migrate to a peripheral region, or (iii) migrate to a growth-centre region. The random parameter logit model allows us to specify the impact of expected earning as a function of occupational dummies and other variables, including a random factor. Our estimation results on a one-percent random sample from the Finnish longitudinal census file indicate that a decision to move is influenced by expected earnings, but the impact is dependent, for example, on occupational and educational group and on region of origin.

Self-employment duration in urban and rural locations

Previous research has shown that the local environment is important for self-employment. The dynamics of self-employment varies between areas characterized by different labour market conditions, entrepreneurial traditions and other structural factors. This paper analyzes self-employment spells in Finland with a large register-based data set from the period 1987–2002. The main aim is to investigate the role of region-specific factors as compared with individual-specific and other factors on the duration of self-employment spells. First, the descriptive analysis shows that the exit rates from self-employment and the length of self-employment spells depend upon location (urban vs. rural area) and the cyclical trends in the economy. Second, self-employment duration is modelled using discrete time survival analysis. It is found that rural areas have significantly lower exit rates in the first years of self-employment than urban areas

The Effects of the Value-Added Tax on Revenue and Inequality

This paper examines the impact of the introduction of the value-added tax on inequality and government revenues using newly released macro data. We present both conventional country fixed effect regressions and instrumental variable analyses, where VAT adoption is instrumented using the previous values of neighbouring countries’ VAT systems as an instrument. The results reveal – in contrast to earlier work – that the revenue consequences of the VAT have not been positive. The results indicate that income-based inequality has increased due to the VAT adoption, whereas consumption inequality has remained unaffected.Peer reviewe

Koronapandemian vaikutus lähtömuuttoon Uudeltamaalta

Uusimaa koki poikkeuksellisesti muuttotappioita koronapandemian aikana. Tässä artikkelissa tutkimme, millä tavoin pandemia muutti Uudenmaan lähtömuuttoa. Hyödynnämme Tilastokeskuksen yksilöaineistoja ja tutkimme, (i) miten yksilöiden ominaisuudet selittävät lähtömuuttoalttiutta ennen koronapandemiaa ja sen aikana sekä (ii) tapahtuiko alueella asuvien muuttokäyttäytymisessä muutoksia pandemian aikana. Tulostemme mukaan Uudenmaan kasvaneen lähtömuuton taustalla oli ennen kaikkea koronapandemian aikana yleisesti kasvanut muuttohalukkuus Uudellamaalla. Yksittäisistä väestöryhmistä on tunnistettavissa erityisesti nuorten kasvanut lähtömuuttoalttius. Havaitsimme myös muita käyttäytymismuutoksia, joista osa oli lyhytaikaisia ja osa voimistui koronapandemian edetessä