Human capital migration from a life course perspective The role of geography and gender

Within countries, internal migration contributes to the redistribution of human capital, which is crucial for economic growth in knowledge-intensive economies. The overall contribution of this dissertation is to provide an integral picture of the life courses of highly educated individuals from leaving the parental home to enrol in higher education to the transition from education to work, union formation and family formation from a geographical perspective. How can internal migration patterns of human capital during the early adult life course be understood in the labour market context? And what are the roles of gender, partner ties and family formation?
The empirical analyses have demonstrated how internal migration processes in The Netherlands have contributed to increased spatial concentration of human capital in the core region, the Randstad, a polycentric urban region that is characterised by a dense and diversified labour market. This emphasizes the need for policies that address both the benefits and drawbacks of human capital concentration, ensuring balanced regional development and mitigating the negative effects of spatial inequalities.
The findings predominantly support the human capital theory of migration. Educational attainments and regional labour market characteristics are critical predictors of who will migrate and who will not, but primarily during the early stages of the adult life course. However, the effects of social norms on gender roles add nuance to the human capital theory. Internal migration behaviour in the Netherlands exhibits a moderate gendered pattern from the moment graduates complete their education. Partner ties significantly reduce internal migration for both genders, but women face more restrictive socio-demographic contexts than men, as they tend to start cohabitation at younger ages.