Determinants of Net Migration to Rural Areas, and the Impacts of Migration on Rural Labour Markets and Self-Employment in Rural Sweden

Abstract

Across most of Europe, the countryside seems to show a polarized development in which large districts are depopulating, while certain areas, mainly around big- and mid-sized cities, are increasing in population. The latter development is often described in concepts of “rural gentrification” and “rurbanization”, symbolizing a transformation of rural communities to communities with urban values and lifestyles. Most studies of the effects of these processes have focused on social and cultural consequences, as e.g. the displacements of lower-income households with higher-income residents and of rural culture and values with urban ones. This paper examines the phenomenon from another perspective, namely the effects of the “rurbanization” processes on countryside's labour markets and economic life. This paper aims at analysing the determinants of net migration to rural areas in general and to different types of regions, and the impacts of in-migration on rural labour markets, self-employment and other socio-economic conditions in Sweden for the period of 2003–2005. We find that net migration into rural areas increases with the size of adjacent local and regional centres, whereas net migration decreases with the average commuting distance of workers in the rural areas. When comparing in-migrants to rural areas with rural area stayers, our results indicate that the former has lower incomes, a lower employment ratio and a lower degree of entrepreneurial activities. These differences could—at least partly—be explained by the fact that rural area stayers were on average 6 years older than rural area in-migrants, i.e. the two groups were in different stages of their life cycles.

Funding

The work with this paper was partly financed by the research council Formas [grant number 2009–1192].

Notes

1 This is a division that partly has been used in ESPON 1.1.2 “Urban–rural relations in Europe” in creating a typology with regard to urban–rural areas. See also the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) rural definitions. For a thorough interpretation of the employment development in rural areas in the EU, see Copus et al. (2006). See also Copus, Johansson and Mc Quaid 2007.

2 The condition of a total population of at least 100 inhabitants is used to get meaningful migration rates. This supplementary criterion has a negligible effect on the size of the total rural population, since only 21,000 persons (0.2%) lived in SAMS areas with a population density under 50 inhabitants per populated kilometer square and a total population less than 100 inhabitants.