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Job-related migration in the Netherlands. The role of geographical access to employment in a polynucleated urban region

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Abstract

Over the last few decades, the Netherlands’ economic urban landscape has developed into a polynucleated urban structure. The resulting spatial distribution of job opportunities influences geographical job access at the individual level. This paper addresses the question, to what extent does spatial variation in job access within the Netherlands polynucleated urban structure influence job-related migration? First, it is shown that there are large differences in job access in the Netherlands in both the total number of jobs and in job levels. Scores on job access are higher in strategic residential locations in between the major cities in the polynucleated urban region of the Randstad than in the major cities themselves. Second, using data from the Netherlands Housing Demand survey and logistic regression models, it is shown that the probability of job-related migration decreases as the number of jobs within reach of the residence increases. The analyses control for both individual and household characteristics. The results show that strategic residential locations in between the major cities are as favourable as the cities themselves in terms of avoiding high spatial mobility costs.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO Grant 42513002). Maarten van Ham worked on this paper while at the Amsterdam study centre for the Metropolitan Environment (AME), University of Amsterdam. An earlier version of this paper was written together with Oedzge Atzema. I am very grateful to Oedzge Atzema, Pieter Hooimeijer, and Clara H. Mulder for their valuable comments on this paper.

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  1. Faculty of Geosciences, Urban and Regional research Centre Utrecht (URU), Utrecht University, P.O. Box 80.115, 3508 TC, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Maarten van Ham

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Correspondence to Maarten van Ham.

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van Ham, M. Job-related migration in the Netherlands. The role of geographical access to employment in a polynucleated urban region. J Housing Built Environ 20, 107–127 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-005-9000-y

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