Are sparsely populated areas more disconnected from local labor markets? Examining local migration intensities in northern Sweden
Sparsely populated areas (SPAs) have recently been described as a special geographic category with a range of unique features. One such feature is the idea that individual settlements are disconnected from each other (internally disconnected), and becoming increasingly disconnected over time, as the...
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| Publicado no: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/eps, |
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| Principais autores: | , |
| Formato: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Idioma: | Anglais |
| Publicado em: |
Espace populations sociétés
2026
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| Assuntos: | |
| Acesso em linha: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Resumo: | Sparsely populated areas (SPAs) have recently been described as a special geographic category with a range of unique features. One such feature is the idea that individual settlements are disconnected from each other (internally disconnected), and becoming increasingly disconnected over time, as they are separated by distance, diverse development pathways and different socio-economic characteristics. SPAs lack the sorts of stable and reciprocal core-periphery structures common for rural areas in more densely populated settings, meaning that they do not share populations and labor markets within their regions and rely on external and more unpredictable sources of human capital. This paper examines the extent to which the disconnectedness hypothesis applies in the context of sparsely populated municipalities in northern Sweden. Specifically, it compares local (within-county) migration intensities of working age people in northern SPAs with those in other Swedish municipalities over a 21-year period, considering differences across age groups. It also analyses the relationships between change in migration intensity, net-migration position, and population growth over time. The results confirm that northern SPAs were more disconnected than the rest of Sweden, particularly when looking at in-migration intensity. However, they were not consistently more disconnected than other rural municipalities in the south, raising questions about the validity of disconnectedness as an independently defining feature of SPAs. We also find that increased connectedness (through higher local migration intensities) leads to lower in-migration rates for most age groups and poorer net-migration position, suggesting that more resource intensive external labor recruitment may have more desirable outcomes than local labor development. |
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