Brain drain and the Second Wave of Depopulation

Abstract

The territorial imbalances among the autonomous Spanish communities result in emigration of university-educated people in some regions and concentrations of qualified human capital in others. The hinterland of the peninsula and the Cantabrian coast, where the intensity of outflows became more serious with the turn of the century, are affected by the dynamics of educational decapitalisation and emigration of young people of their cities. Depopulation is no longer a phenomenon that is exclusive to rural areas. It has extended to the urban milieus of the traditional sending autonomous communities. Castile and León is the most affected region, with annual migration losses due to long-distance mobility -interregional and abroad- of -13.4‰ among the young people of the capitals of the province, -9.25‰ in other urban municipalities, and -9.63‰ in rural areas. To this migration deficit must be added the high levels of qualifications of the emigrants, since more than 53.8% of young people who leave have university studies and only 36.7% of who arriving from elsewhere in Spain are equally qualified. Madrid is the main receiver of talent, bringing together 38.7% of the interregional migratory movements of young Spanish people whose inflows present high levels of education. In this group, 64.8% are university degree holders. In this issue of Perspectives Demogràfiques we analyse the migratory movements of Spanish-born population between 25and 39 years who crossed some autonomous region border from 2013 to 2017, focusing on interregional flows, the educational level of these exchanges, and the migratory balance according to the territorial setting (urban and rural). In order to do so, we analyse the data from Statistics on Residential Variations (EVR) and the Active Population Survey (EPA).