The regionalization of labour markets by modelling commuting behaviour

There hardly exists any country in which regional employment issues do not play an important role in economic planning or policy making. The need for models to carry out policy analyses in this field of research is evident. In order to analyse regional labour markets administratively defined areas are usually taken as units of analysis. On the one hand, labour market policies targeted on these administratively defined areas may be less effective if the administrative boundaries do not follow functionally linked labour market areas. On the other hand, it may be very difficult for local planning authorities to set policy goals with regard to another subdivision of areas than the administrative subdivision. Therefore it is important for policy makers at the regional level to be aware of the functional interdependencies between regions, in particular when these regions are not functional regional labour markets. In our paper we subdivide functional regional labour markets by modelling the commuting behaviour of workers in the Netherlands. For a better understanding of regional labour markets and their dynamics, commuting behaviour of workers is analysed by using the distance travelled from home to work (see Isserman et al., 1986). The commuting decision depends on workers’ background characteristics like age, sex, education, income or region-specific variables. By analysing the impact of these determinants on commuting, we are able to compare the average commuter of a country, in our case the Netherlands, with the commuters at the municipality level. By taking a closer look at the commuters at the municipality level, we find municipalities in which commuters act significantly different from the average commuter. These differences in commuting behaviour at the municipality level give an impression of the relative labour market attractiveness of the municipalities and thereby of the ratio between labour demand and supply in regions. We use these differences in commuting behaviour to regionalize the labour market. Although many studies have analysed commuting behaviour, a regionalization of labour markets with respect to different groups of workers has rarely been made. In the paper commuting flows of different groups of workers are used to subdivide the national labour market into functional regional labour markets. Contrary to earlier research (for example Green et al. 1991), we prevent to use arbitrarily chosen cut-off points to regionalize the labour market. Instead, we model the commuting behaviour of individual workers and use statistical criteria to subdivide regional labour markets (see also Baumann et al. 1996). Moreover, we show that the resulting regionalization of the labour market strongly depends on the group of individual workers concerned in the analysis. For example, it is shown that workers travel on average 21,5 kilometres for the home-to-work journey and that this distance increases with the educational level of the commuters. Therefore the regional labour market for workers with a high level of education is relatively large. To perform our empirical analysis we use journey-to-work data from Statistics Netherlands (CBS, 2001).

The relationship between geographical mobility and education-job mismatches

In this paper we investigate the relationship between geographical mobility and education-job mismatches. School-leavers might adjust to local labour market frictions by accepting some education-job mismatch combined with a mobility decision. We focus on the relationship between the mobility decision and the following education-job mismatches: a job below the educational level, outside the educational field, part-time or flexible jobs at the beginning of the career. For this purpose we use data about school-leavers from secondary education and higher vocational education in the period 1996-2001. The analysis is conducted at a disaggregated spatial level to incorporate differences in behaviour of school-leavers at the regional level. We find that school-leavers who are more mobile have a lower probability to have a job below the acquired educational level compared with school-leavers who are less mobile. Moreover, school-leavers who are more mobile experience especially a lower probability of a part-time or a flexible job. This result suggests that school-leavers not only try to prevent a job below the acquired educational level, but also other education-job mismatches in their mobility decision

The role of geographic mobility in reducing education-job mismatches in the Netherlands.

In this paper we investigate the relationship between geographic mobility and education-job mismatch in the Netherlands. We focus on the role of geographic mobility in reducing the probability of graduates working (i) jobs below their education level; (ii) jobs outside their study field; (iii) part-time jobs; (iv) flexible jobs; or (v) jobs paid below the wage expected at the beginning of the career. For this purpose we use data on secondary and higher vocational education graduates in the period 1996–2001. We show that graduates who are mobile have higher probability of finding jobs at the acquired education level than those who are not. Moreover, mobile graduates have higher probability of finding full-time or permanent jobs. This suggests that mobility is sought to prevent not only having to take a job below the acquired education level, but also other education-job mismatches; graduates are spatially flexible particularly to ensure full-time jobs.Geographic labour mobility;job mismatch;occupational choice;

The relationship between geographical mobility and education-job mismatches

In this paper we investigate the relationship between geographical mobility and education-job mismatches. School-leavers might adjust to local labour market frictions by accepting some education-job mismatch combined with a mobility decision. We focus on the relationship between the mobility decision and the following education-job mismatches: a job below the educational level, outside the educational field, part-time or flexible jobs at the beginning of the career. For this purpose we use data about school-leavers from secondary education and higher vocational education in the period 1996-2001. The analysis is conducted at a disaggregated spatial level to incorporate differences in behaviour of school-leavers at the regional level. We find that school-leavers who are more mobile have a lower probability to have a job below the acquired educational level compared with school-leavers who are less mobile. Moreover, school-leavers who are more mobile experience especially a lower probability of a part-time or a flexible job. This result suggests that school-leavers not only try to prevent a job below the acquired educational level, but also other education-job mismatches in their mobility decision.

Eindrapportage Onderwijs Innovatiearrangement Toekomst Bestendig Techniek Onderwijs Parkstad (TBTOP)

Het Project TBTOP is een samenwerkingsproject tussen onderwijsinstellingen voor VMBO, MBO en HBO om het techniek onderwijs samen met bedrijven in de regio aantrekkelijker te maken voor studenten, docenten en bedrijfsleven. Dit wil men realiseren door meer praktijknabij onderwijs te ontwikkelen. Ook wil men de vak-disciplinaire visie op het beroep verbreden en studenten kennis laten maken met doorstroommogelijkheden in studie en beroep. Een groep projectleiders uit de verschillende onderwijsinstellingen draagt zorg voor de voortgang van de vernieuwingsprocessen en verankering in het onderwijs. De betrokkenen hebben samenwerking in een nieuwe context ervaren namelijk samenwerking met de beroepspraktijk, samenwerking met andere vakdisciplines en samenwerking met andere onderwijsinstellingen (en dus onderwijsniveaus). Het samenwerken aan praktijkopdrachten in multidisciplinaire TOPteams is een nieuw proces geweest voor docenten en bedrijfsmedewerkers. Dit proces heeft, los van de concrete producten en processen, een cultuurverandering in het onderwijs in gang gezet. Groepen docenten zijn getriggerd om over de grenzen van hun vakgebied te kijken en naar het onderwijs te kijken, vanuit de bril van de praktijk. Hiermee hebben de betrokkenen zich geprofessionaliseerd. In de film die gemaakt is naar aanleiding van dit project, vertellen betrokkenen hun ervaringen binnen de nieuwe samenwerkingsvormen. De film is interactief en op verschillende momenten in te stappen. Bijlages bij de Eindrapportage: 1: Onderzoeksrapport Toekomst Bestendig Techniek Onderwijs Parkstad. 2: Leerwerkbedrijf de Wijk van Morgen, opgeleverd ?! 3: Verslag TOPgroep "Integraal Ontwerp" Mbo-breed. 4: Handboek Community for Development Bio Based Building. 5: GroeneBoord ; een ontwikkelproject voor seriematige woningbouw

The role of geographic mobility in reducing education-job mismatches in the Netherlands

In this paper we investigate the relationship between geographic mobility and education-job mismatch in the Netherlands. We focus on the role of geographic mobility in reducing the probability of graduates working (i) jobs below their education level; (ii) jobs outside their study field; (iii) part-time jobs; (iv) flexible jobs; or (v) jobs paid below the wage expected at the beginning of the career. For this purpose we use data on secondary and higher vocational education graduates in the period 1996-2001. We show that graduates who are mobile have higher probability of finding jobs at the acquired education level than those who are not. Moreover, mobile graduates have higher probability of finding full-time or permanent jobs. This suggests that mobility is sought to prevent not only having to take a job below the acquired education level, but also other education-job mismatches; graduates are spatially flexible particularly to ensure full-time jobs. Copyright (c) 2008 the author(s). Journal compilation (c) 2008 RSAI.