Delineating zones to increase geographical detail in individual response data files: An application to the Spanish 2011 Census of population

Due to confidentiality considerations, the microdata available from the 2011 Spanish Census have been codified at a provincial (NUTS 3) level except when the municipal (LAU 2) population exceeds 20,000 inhabitants (a requirement that is met by less than 5% of all municipalities). For the remainder of the municipalities within a given province, information is only provided for their classification in wide population intervals. These limitations, hampering territorially-focused socio-economic analyses, and more specifically, those related to the labour market, are observed in many other countries. This article proposes and demonstrates an automatic procedure aimed at delineating a set of areas that meet such population requirements and that may be used to re-codify the geographic reference in these cases, thereby increasing the territorial detail at which individual information is available. The method aggregates municipalities into clusters based on the optimisation of a relevant objective function subject to a number of statistical constraints, and is implemented using evolutionary computation techniques. Clusters are defined to fit outer boundaries at the level of labour market areas.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (grant number CSO2014-55780-C3-2-P, National R&D&i Plan 2013-2016)

Testing Transferability: Quantitative Evaluation of Labor Market Area Definition Methods in Three Contrasting Countries

Sub-national economic policies increasingly use labor market areas (LMAs) rather than administrative areas for analysis and implementation. How a set of LMAs was defined influences the results of such analyses, and so accurate policy delivery needs appropriately defined LMAs. Multinational bodies need comparable LMA definitions in many countries, calling for a definition method that is transferable across national boundaries. This article applies quantitative metrics to evaluate LMAs defined in three contrasting countries by three methods that represent the main methodological approaches. The deductive approach—based on a center and hinterland—is too inflexible to deal with differing geographical circumstances and cannot cope with statistical zones that are very small, or do not respect settlement structure. The alternative inductive methods tested define appropriate LMAs in each country, with the newer method performing slightly better in statistical terms. The article also exemplifies the usefulness of the metrics for comparisons of alternative regionalizations.Funding for related Spanish analyses was via Project PID2020-114896RB-100/Agencia Estatal de Investigación, AEI/10.13039/501100011033, Spanish State Plan for Scientific and Technical Research, and Innovation 2017–2020, and Project AICO/2021/062, Generalitat Valenciana, Department of Innovation, Universities, Science and Digital Society

An evolutive approach for the delineation of local labour markets

This paper presents a new approach to the delineation of local labour markets based on evolutionary computation. The main objective is the regionalisation of a given territory into functional regions based on commuting flows. According to the relevant literature, such regions are defined so that (a) their boundaries are rarely crossed in daily journeys to work, and (b) a high degree of intra-area movement exists. This proposal merges municipalities into functional regions by maximizing a fitness function that measures aggregate intra-region interaction under constraints of inter-region separation and minimum size. Real results are presented based on the latest database from the Census of Population in the Region of Valencia. Comparison between the results obtained through the official method which currently is most widely used (that of British Travel-to-Work Areas) and those from our approach is also presented, showing important improvements in terms of both the number of different market areas identified that meet the statistical criteria and the degree of aggregate intra-market interaction.José M. Casado-Díaz has received financial support from the Spanish Department of Education and Science (ref. BEC2003-02391) through a program partly funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Lucas Martínez-Bernabeu acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Dept. of Education and Science, the European Social Fund (ESF) and the University of Alicante

Functional Regions for Policy: a Statistical ‘Toolbox’ Providing Evidence for Decisions between Alternative Geographies

Labour market areas and other functional regions (FRs) are increasingly used within research and policy, but how FRs are best defined is an unresolved issue. This is important because the policy impacts, or the research results, will differ depending on the specific FR boundaries used. As a result of this sensitivity (termed the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem), quantitative metrics are needed so that differing sets of FR boundaries can be evaluated. To meet this need the paper firstly reviews the concept and use of labour market areas – the form of FRs most widely used in policy – to identify relevant criteria for evaluating any regionalisation comprising a set of FRs. Next a range of potential measurable indicators for each of the criteria is defined. These candidate indicators are then exemplified by applying them to a huge number of alternative sets of FRs. From this empirical evidence a short-list of preferred indicators is identified, creating a statistical ‘toolbox’ for evaluating sets of FRs. The paper ends by first sketching possible processes within which applying the indicators can help policy-makers with a decision over the appropriate set of FRs for a specific policy, before finally outlining some potential future research developments.This paper reflects on work supported by EUROSTAT (specific contract num. 50405.2010.004-2011.325) which was undertaken by the authors with Colin Wymer (CURDS, Newcastle University). The research at IEI, University of Alicante, was also supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under grant CSO2017-86474-R (National R&D&i Plan, Spain) (MINECO/AEI/ERDF, EU)

Functional Labour Market Areas for Chile

Administrative areas are arbitrarily designed and do not necessarily reflect the geographical patterns of socio-economic and labour market activity. Labour market areas (LMAs) are required to analyse spatial labour market activity and provide a framework to guide spatially-explicit employment policy development. This resource describes a data source of a set of recently created labour market areas for Chile.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness [grant numbers CSO2011-29943-C03-02 and CSO2014-55780-C3-2-P, National R&D&i Plan] and the Chilean National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research through its human capital development program

Optimización de áreas funcionales espaciales mediante algoritmos evolutivos multioperador. Aplicación a la delimitación de mercados locales de trabajo

El documento de esta tesis por compendio de publicaciones se divide en dos partes: la síntesis donde se resume la fundamentación, resultados y conclusiones de esta tesis, y las propias publicaciones en su formato original, que se incluyen como apéndices. Dado que existen acuerdo de confidencialidad (véase "Derechos" más adelante) que impiden su publicación en formato electrónico de forma pública y abierta (como es el repositorio de la UA), y acorde con lo que se dictamina en el punto 6 del artículo 14 del RD 99/2011, de 28 de enero, no se incluyen estos apéndices en el documento electrónico que se presenta en cedé, pero se incluyen las referencias completas y sí se incluyen integramente en el ejemplar encuadernado. Si el CEDIP y el RUA así lo decidiesen más adelante, podría modificarse este documento electrónico para incluir los enlaces a los artículos originales.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia y los programas FEDER y FSE de la UE (proyecto ref. BEC2003-02391 y Programa de Personal Técnico de Apoyo en la modalidad de Proyectos de I+D, ref. solicitud PTA-2003-02-00178, 495); Ministerio de Fomento (proyecto ref. T 75/2006); Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación y el programa FEDER de la UE (proyectos ref. SEJ2007-67767-C04-02 y ref. CSO2011-29943-C03-02); Universidad de Alicante

Los mercados locales de trabajo españoles: una aplicación del nuevo procedimiento británico

Este trabajo se ha realizado en el marco del proyecto SEJ2007-67767-C04-02, financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación y FEDER

Un algoritmo evolutivo para la delimitación de mercados locales de trabajo

Comunicación presentada en la XXXI Reunión de Estudios Regionales "El Estado Autonómico a debate: eficiencia, eficacia y solidaridad", Alcalá de Henares, 17-18 de noviembre de 2005En esta comunicación se propone un enfoque evolutivo para tratar el problema de delimitación de áreas funcionales relevantes para el análisis de los mercados de trabajo en ámbitos locales y urbanos. El objetivo es la delimitación del territorio en el que la oferta y la demanda de trabajo se encuentran en los ámbitos urbanos mediante la identificación de áreas (a) cuyas fronteras son cruzadas sólo excepcionalmente en el curso de los desplazamientos residencia-trabajo y (b) dentro de las cuales se produce un alto nivel de interacción. Se utilizará para ello un nuevo método basado en computación evolutiva que agrupa municipios en regiones funcionales mediante la maximización de una función que pondera los flujos intramercados sujeta a una serie de restricciones entre las que destaca la superación de un nivel dado de autonomía y de tamaño mínimo. El algoritmo propuesto se basa, por tanto, en una combinación de selección, recombinación y mutación y permite evolucionar hacia una solución mejorada del problema de regionalización partiendo de (a) un mapa de regiones obtenido a partir de alguno de los métodos existentes o (b) una solución inicial de carácter aleatorio que es reevaluada a lo largo del proceso.Este trabajo es fruto del proyecto “Movilidad cotidiana y mercados de vivienda y trabajo en las áreas urbanas españolas”, del Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Plan Nacional de I+D+i (BEC 2003-02391), y ha recibido fondos procedentes de los programas FEDER y FSE de la UE

Automatic delimitation of labour market areas based on multi-criteria optimisation: The case of Spain 2011

Labour market areas (LMAs) are a type of functional region (FR) defined on commuting flows and used in many countries to serve as the territorial reference for regional studies and policy making at local levels. Existing methods rely on manual adjustments of the results to ensure high quality, making them difficult to be monitored, hard to apply to different territories, and onerous to produce in terms of required work-hours. We propose an approach to automatise all stages of the delineation procedure and improve the final results, building upon a state-of-the-art stochastic search procedure that ensures optimal allocation of municipalities/counties to LMAs while keeping good global indicators: a pre-processing layer clusters adjoining municipalities with strong commuting flows to constrain the initial search space of the stochastic search, and a multi-criteria heuristic corrects common deficiencies that derive from global maximisation approaches or simple greedy heuristics. It produces high quality LMAs with optimal local characteristics. To demonstrate this methodology and assess the improvement achieved, we apply it to define LMAs in Spain based on the latest commuting data.This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities / Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), and the EU ERDF, grant number CSO2017-86474-R

Delineating zones to increase geographical detail in individual response data files :an application to the Spanish 2011 Census of population

Due to confidentiality considerations, the microdata available from the 2011 Spanish Census have been codified at a provincial (NUTS 3) level except when the municipal (LAU 2) population exceeds 20,000 inhabitants (a requirement that is met by less than 5% of all municipalities). For the remainder of the municipalities within a given province, information is only provided for their classification in wide population intervals. These limitations, hampering territorially-focused socio-economic analyses, and more specifically, those related to the labour market, are observed in many other countries. This article proposes and demonstrates an automatic procedure aimed at delineating a set of areas that meet such population requirements and that may be used to re-codify the geographic reference in these cases, thereby increasing the territorial detail at which individual information is available. The method aggregates municipalities into clusters based on the optimization of a relevant objective function subject to a number of statistical constraints, and is implemented using evolutionary computation techniques. Clusters are defined to fit outer boundaries at the level of labour market areas.263