<p>It somewhat depends what you mean by that. The process is more complicated with migrants to cities also acquiring skills/education there, <a href="https://oxfordre.com/economics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190625979.001.0001/acrefore-9780190625979-e-153" rel="nofollow noreferrer">e.g.</a></p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Another important piece of work related to education-based motivation is <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5c70/5849af7a8f5361b23a760ee5ac3c7275dbda.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Lucas (2004)</a>, who constructs a two-sector model where the urban sector pays a higher wage due to its high-skilled jobs which are not available to rural workers. Unskilled rural agents migrate to cities to accumulate human capital and invest in skills. Households’ preferences are isoelastic and they supply one unit of time endowment to either work or invest in human capital. Rural production uses labor and land; it has diminishing returns because land is fixed in quantity. The urban production technology is linear and requires only skilled labor input. Human capital investment can only take place in cities and labor is free to move between sectors. Rural–urban migration takes place once and for all with the growth rate of production of the urban (rural) sector changes from zero (one) to a constant positive level (zero). </p>
</blockquote>

<p>This is somewhat of a no-brainer, you don't expect PhDs in AI to just pop up in rural areas and then migrate to cities...</p>

<p>There's a monster <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=738&amp;langId=en&amp;pubId=8156&amp;furtherPubs=yes" rel="nofollow noreferrer">EU document</a> (some 350 pages) published in 2018 on migration patterns inside the Union.  As far as I can tell from that (its summary is poor), already [mostly the younger] skilled workers prefer to move to another EU country (with better wages, less corruption, etc.)</p>

<p>For healthcare workers, which the EU study spends a lot of time on, within a given EU country, there's indeed a more acute shortage in the rural areas (p. 266). However across EU countries healthcare workers may migrate from an urban area e.g. in Greece to a rural area in the UK, all because of pay, prospects etc. (p. 269)</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-06-04T04:02:08.917Z
2019-06-04T04:51:35.290Z
2019-06-04T04:51:35.290Z
fantastic peace and prosperity
<p>Yes, this was written about at some length in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_and_Poverty" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Progress and Poverty</a> by the American economist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Henry George</a> in the late 1800s.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-06-03T13:09:34.053Z
2019-06-03T13:09:34.053Z
Bill Clark
<p>Is there a pull of skilled workforce from rural to urban areas, i.e. is this scientifically described?</p>

<p>Especially in the European Union.</p>

<education-economics><migration><urban-economics><european-union>
Is there a pull of skilled workforce from rural to urban areas?
Gergely
# Is there a pull of skilled workforce from rural to urban areas?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2019-06-03)

Is there a pull of skilled workforce from rural to urban areas, i.e. is this scientifically described?

Especially in the European Union.

**Tags:** education-economics, migration, urban-economics, european-union


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2019-06-04. Score: 2

It somewhat depends what you mean by that. The process is more complicated with migrants to cities also acquiring skills/education there, [e.g.](https://oxfordre.com/economics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190625979.001.0001/acrefore-9780190625979-e-153)

> Another important piece of work related to education-based motivation is [Lucas (2004)](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5c70/5849af7a8f5361b23a760ee5ac3c7275dbda.pdf), who constructs a two-sector model where the urban sector pays a higher wage due to its high-skilled jobs which are not available to rural workers. Unskilled rural agents migrate to cities to accumulate human capital and invest in skills. Households’ preferences are isoelastic and they supply one unit of time endowment to either work or invest in human capital. Rural production uses labor and land; it has diminishing returns because land is fixed in quantity. The urban production technology is linear and requires only skilled labor input. Human capital investment can only take place in cities and labor is free to move between sectors. Rural–urban migration takes place once and for all with the growth rate of production of the urban (rural) sector changes from zero (one) to a constant positive level (zero).

This is somewhat of a no-brainer, you don't expect PhDs in AI to just pop up in rural areas and then migrate to cities...

There's a monster [EU document](https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=738&langId=en&pubId=8156&furtherPubs=yes) (some 350 pages) published in 2018 on migration patterns inside the Union. As far as I can tell from that (its summary is poor), already [mostly the younger] skilled workers prefer to move to another EU country (with better wages, less corruption, etc.)

For healthcare workers, which the EU study spends a lot of time on, within a given EU country, there's indeed a more acute shortage in the rural areas (p. 266). However across EU countries healthcare workers may migrate from an urban area e.g. in Greece to a rural area in the UK, all because of pay, prospects etc. (p. 269)


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### Answer by username_2 on 2019-06-03. Score: 1

Yes, this was written about at some length in [Progress and Poverty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_and_Poverty) by the American economist [Henry George](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George) in the late 1800s.


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