Willingness to Move for Work and Unemployment Duration in Spain

Resumen

This paper examines unemployed workers' willingness to move for work and its relationship with their unemployment duration in Spain. We use a hypothetical question in the Spanish Labour Force Survey: ''Would you accept a job offer which implied a change of residence?''. The main finding is that while family responsibilities, age and education are important in determining individuals' migration willingness, the duration of unemployment does not show any significant effect, even after controlling for unobserved fixed individual heterogeneity. However, the significant improvement in migration willingness after exhaustion of unemployment benefits (or when other household members become unemployed) suggests that economic incentives could play an important role in increasing worker mobility. We also find that the job-finding probability is significantly higher among those with positive migration attitudes than among others.