Evgenia Anastasiou (p)

The economic development of the last decade has caused a whole host of changes within Greece. Among others, the country’s demographic structure was largely affected, as new mobility flows emerged and new forms of population distribution are revealing new attractiveness zones in the rural areas. The decade 2001-2011 is characterized by a net slowdown of the intense urbanization trend. The motives of the newrurals focus on areas with population dynamics, tourism development, agricultural activity, services and structures, reduction of geographical isolation, low cost of living and habitation.
The present paper raises the issue of the prospects of the establishment of Greek citizens in the countryside, taking into account the amenities of rural areas. Through Foresight and Strategic Thinking Methods, a longer-term framework is being developed to reflect the potential strategic choices of the internal migrants. This approach is based on a mainly qualitative analysis combining the prevailing conditions of the external environment with the pull factors of rural areas. The development of future scenarios and consequently the prospects for the establishment of Greeks in the countryside are twofold. It will become clear whether the settlement in the countryside is for Greece a phenomenon essentially generated by the economic crisis conditions and on the other hand what are the prerequisites for the further development of such a type of settlement.

Vífill Karlsson (p), Thoroddur Bjarnason

Number of children have been reduced fast (Vífill Karlsson, 2015) and young farmers been likely to abandon farming than middle aged farmers (Vífill Karlsson, 2018). Employment share of agriculture in Iceland has moved from 86% of the total employment in 1870 to 3% in 2017. Moreover, a recent development in Icelandic farmers communities suggest that the less than 50% of the inhabitants work in the agriculture and in 2016 and 2017 they were close to 1/3. So, the number of inhabitants in the farmers communities that work in the agriculture have been decreasing relatively to the inhabitants working in other industries. Therefore, the study will compare the preference regarding the factors of the quality of life between the inhabitants of the farmers community that work in the agriculture and those who work in other industries. The analysis will be based on a new survey where more than 6.000 respondents from many of Icelandic rural regions of Iceland answered, where 1.200 lives in farmers communities and the rest in small urban communities of Iceland. 40 factors regarding quality of life were investigated.

Anja Rossen (p), Cornelius Peters , Moritz Meister

This paper focusses on the spatial mobility of young workers. In particular, we are interested in the factors determining the decisions of workers who recently completed vocational training to emigrate from rural areas and subsequent return migration. Employing event history analyses, we provide evidence on when during individual working life these migration events happen (if at all) and the significance of individual and regional characteristics for the likelihood to migrate.
The economic development of regions significantly depends on localised human capital which is supposed to be crucially affected by the availability of young skilled workers. However, in Germany in particular some rural areas experience a significant out migration of young people. Not only high school graduates frequently emigrate from rural areas to a big city for their studies or vocational training, but also young workers after completing vocational training in a rural region do so. This paper focusses on the latter group, i.e., those young workers in which firms already invested. We are interested in the share of these workers who return to the location of origin after acquiring work experience elsewhere, e.g., in a big city, selection effects related to initial and return migration, and regional characteristics determining the migration decisions. To analyse these decisions, we make use of extensive secondary data, the Integrated Employment Biographies (IEB) of the Institute for Employment Research (IAB).
The IEB provide detailed information on individual employment biographies of all workers in Germany except the self-employed and civil servants. Each employment spell contains information on, among others, the period of employment at a daily basis, employment status, occupation, gross daily wage, and the location of employment at municipality level. Furthermore, from 1999 onwards information on the municipality of residence is available. Hence, we are able to identify migration events after a completion of vocational training at a daily basis. We relate these events to individual characteristics (e.g., gender and age) as well as characteristics of the preceding vocational training (occupation, wage) and employer (size, industry, productivity level, workforce composition). Furthermore, using the region identifier available in the IEB, we merge information on regional labour market conditions, the regional industrial structure, as well as amenities in order to analyse their importance for individual migration decisions of workers who recently completed vocational training.