Migration across Spanish Provinces: Evidence from the Social Security Records (1978-1992)

This paper uses Social Security records to study internal migration in Spain. This is the first paper that uses this data source, which has some advantages with respect to existing data sources: it includes only job-seeking migrants and it allows to identify temporary migration. Within the framework of an extended gravity model, we estimate a Generalized Negative Binomial regression on gross migration flows between provinces. We quantify the effect of local labor market imbalances on workers' mobility and discuss the equilibrating role of internal migration in Spain. Our results suggest that the effect of employment opportunities have increased during the sample period: after 1984 migrants seem to be more responsive to economic conditions; however, consistently with previous studies for the Spanish labor market, we find that the response of migration to wage differentials is wrongly signed. Our analysis also confirms the larger internal mobility of highly qualified workers.