Tineke Reitsma (p), Bettina Bock , Femke Cnossen, Tialda Haartsen

Kateryna Tkach

To counteract the effects of young adult outmigration on rural areas, several regions implement return initiatives aimed at re-attracting young adult leavers after they have gained education, work experience, or lived elsewhere. Although some leavers return, most migration trajectories after leaving remain unclear, making it difficult for return initiatives to effectively target and time their efforts. In particular, knowledge is limited about the migration trajectories of rural young adult leavers beyond their initial departure and throughout early adulthood, as well as when and where interventions might be most effective in influencing their migration behaviour.

To address this gap, this paper aims at identifying the migration trajectories of young adult leavers and returners (11-35 years old), using the System of Social Statistical Datasets of Statistics Netherlands. After performing sequence and cluster analysis on migration behaviour of rural young adults, our findings reveal five distinct migration patterns: (1) returning to the rural home area and staying, (2) leaving again after returning, (3) moving out once and settling in the new destination, (4) onward migration beyond the first destination, and (5) delayed outmigration at a later age. Variations in migration patterns are largely shaped by the timing of departure from the rural home area and the duration of residence in subsequent destinations.

Next, we analyse how sociodemographic and regional characteristics shape the emergence of specific migration patterns. Following a life course approach we find that the presence and migration history of a partner, level of education, and, in certain patterns, field of study, as well as parenthood, play significant roles in shaping the five migration patterns of rural young adult leavers. These insights offer valuable input for designing more targeted and effective return initiatives that may help to mitigate rural depopulation and keep rural communities vital.

Alessandra Faggian, Alessandra Michelangeli, Kateryna Tkach (p)

Steven Kema

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine has induced an influx of refugees from Ukraine to the European countries, becoming the largest humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II. Despite a growing interest in the topic, little is known about Ukrainian refugees’ skills and their labour market integration in the hosting countries. This paper aims to offer preliminary evidence by analysing the employment patterns and skill profiles of Ukrainians in Italy. We use the responses collected in two phases, September 2023 – March 2024 and October – November 2024, via an online survey. We find that educational attainment and language skills are essential for refugees’ employment status in Italy. We also document the role of language skills and regional employment rate for refugees; beliefs about job-qualification match. Our preliminary evidence sheds light on Ukrainians’ skill profiles, which are pivotal for closing the employment gap and increasing labour market inclusiveness.

Steven Kema (p), Viktor Venhorst

Giulio Castellano

Understanding how university graduates navigate local labour markets is important for the economic futures of regions. The presence of a highly educated workforce generates knowledge spillovers and human capital externalities (Corcoran and Faggian 2017; Faggian and Mccann 2009), which in turn enhance productivity and facilitate high-technology activities (Consoli, Vona, and Saarivirta 2013). Human capital remains one of the strongest predictors of sustained economic vitality (Abel and Deitz 2012), and so graduate labour mobility not only shapes individual career trajectories but also has broader implications for regional economic competitiveness and development.
A particularly relevant group within labour mobility research is international graduates—individuals who pursue higher education in a country different from their country of origin. After graduation, these individuals face a range of mobility decisions: they may remain in their study region, relocate within the host country, or leave the country altogether. Despite its increasing policy relevance, empirical research on the underlying mechanisms of international graduate labour market entry remain underexplored (Calonge et al. 2023), particularly from a regional perspective.
Empirical evidence suggests that graduates who change location fare better than those who do not change location or industry, but those who change both location and industry do worse in the short term, both in terms of lower earnings and lower career satisfaction (Abreu, Faggian, and McCann 2015). International graduates are a special case however, as their labour market integration is influenced by both advantages, such as diverse skill sets, and disadvantages, including language barriers, visa difficulties, and weaker local professional networks (Nikou, Kadel, and Gutema 2023; Gutema, Pant, and Nikou 2023; Calonge et al. 2023).
Our work aims to address the existing research gap by quantitatively examining the career outcomes of international university graduates in the Netherlands at a regional level. Do international graduates that stay in their university region have worse career outcomes than graduates who opt to move to another region within the country after graduation?
For the analysis we utilize a rich administrative dataset from the Dutch Central Statistics Bureau (CBS) that contains all persons registered in the Netherlands, including personal information, place of residence, educational background, country of origin, work history (including salary, contract type, sector).The goal of our work is to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of graduate labour market integration and its broader implications for regional economic development.

Giulio Castellano (p), Gaetano Vecchione, Viktor Venhorst

Tineke Reitsma

This work intends to contribute to the literature on the consequences of regional skilled migration on origin regions. More specifically, it aims to investigate the impact of regional skilled migrations in Italy on human capital accumulation and, in the last resort, on economic growth of Southern Italian regions.

Skilled migration reduces the human capital endowment in the origin regions, with a negative effect on labor productivity and, eventually, on economic performance. In addition to this direct effect, skilled migration might also influence economic performance through an indirect (human capital) channel, as migration prospects can influence ndividual agents’ educational choices. This transmission mechanism is formalized in a theoretical framework drawn from the model of Boeri et al. (2012) for international migrations. To test the existence of the hypothesized mechanisms, preliminary OLS estimates with fixed effects are run. Then, to allow for spatially heterogeneous effects, we interact the migration rates with a South-North dummy and a categorical variable for the degree of peripherality of provinces based on the concept of "inner areas".

Finally, an IV 2SLS strategy is adopted in order to control for the endogeneity of migration. Fixed effects are included in order to reduce the omitted variable bias. This empirical strategy is run using regional data from official statistical sources (ISTAT and Ministry of University and Research) for the period 2004-2022.