A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Kallioras, Dimitris; Kandylis, Yorgos; Kromydakis, Nikos; Pantazis, Panagiotis Conference Paper Delineation of local labor markets in Greece on the basis of travel-to-work flows 51st Congress of the European Regional Science Association: "New Challenges for European Regions and Urban Areas in a Globalised World", 30 August - 3 September 2011, Barcelona, Spain Provided in Cooperation with: European Regional Science Association (ERSA) Suggested Citation: Kallioras, Dimitris; Kandylis, Yorgos; Kromydakis, Nikos; Pantazis, Panagiotis (2011) : Delineation of local labor markets in Greece on the basis of travel-to-work flows, 51st Congress of the European Regional Science Association: "New Challenges for European Regions and Urban Areas in a Globalised World", 30 August - 3 September 2011, Barcelona, Spain, European Regional Science Association (ERSA), Louvain-la-Neuve This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/119905 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. 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Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu DELINEATION OF LOCAL LABOR MARKETS IN GREECE ON THE BASIS OF TRAVEL-TO-WORK FLOWS Dimitris Kallioras1, Yorgos Kandylis2, Nikos Kromydakis3 and Panayotis Pantazis4 1 Dr., Economist, Adjunct Lecturer – Elected Assistant Professor, University of Thessaly, Department of Planning and Regional Development, Pedion Areos, 38334, Volos, Greece, phone: (+30)2421074484, fax: (+30)2421074385, e-mail: [email protected] 2 Dr., Political Scientist, Researcher, National Center for Social Research, Institute of Urban and Rural Sociology, e-mail: [email protected] 3 Planning Engineer, PhD Candidate, University of Thessaly, Department of Planning and Regional Development, e-mail: [email protected] 4 Planning Engineer, University of Thessaly, Department of Planning and Regional Development, e-mail: [email protected] Abstract The aim of the paper is the delineation of local labor markets in Greece on the basis of the two-way (i.e. incoming and outgoing) travel-to-work flows. The delineation of local labor markets is bound to establish a unit of locality which commands general acceptance as reference for addressing issues of planning and development, as well as issues of labor market, in a manner which is not possible through the conventional, administrative and/or statistical territorial partitions. The identification of the functional linkages, under the prism of territorial hierarchy, that exist among spatial entities, is going to detect relations of interaction, interdependence and overlapping – and also discontinuities – in the Greek territory allowing for a number of research issues to be thoroughly addressed. The analysis is going to utilize the disaggregated travel-to-work flows data, among the 1,034 local administrative units in Greece (i.e. municipalities and communities), solicited in the 2001 Population Census. The aforementioned data are referred to permanent population and include both daily and seasonal travel-to-work flows. Key words: travel-to-work flows, local labour markets, employment poles, functional periphery, employment enclave JEL: R12, J49 1. Introduction Labor does not move only between firms and occupations; labor moves also between geographic areas (Goodman, 1970; Rossi, 1980). The territorial dimension of labor markets, however, has been rather loosely conceptualized (Goodman, 1970; Clark and Gertler, 1983), probably because spatial theories have been developed, to a great extent, separately from the economic ones (Efstatoglou, 1998). The recognition of the “multiplicity of sub-markets” in the real world (Goodman, 1970: 179) necessitates the delineation of local labor markets (LLMs) since the geographical dimension of both the production process and the labor force breeds territorial partitions in the labor market, setting obstacles to – and creating opportunities for – the mobility of (potential) workers (Blanchard and Katz, 1992; Decressin and Fatás, 1995). The aim of the paper is the delineation of LLMs in Greece on the basis of the two-way (i.e. incoming and outgoing) travel-to-work flows. The delineation of LLMs is bound to establish a unit of locality which commands general acceptance as reference for addressing issues of planning and development, as well as issues of labor market, in a manner which is not possible through the conventional, administrative and/or statistical territorial partition. The identification of the functional linkages, under the prism of territorial hierarchy, that exist among spatial entities, is going to detect relations of interaction, interdependence and overlapping – and also discontinuities – in the Greek territory allowing for a number of research issues to be thoroughly addressed. The analysis is going to utilize the disaggregated travel-to-work flows data, among the 1,034 local administrative units (LAUs) in Greece1 (i.e. municipalities and communities) (Map 1), solicited in the 2001 Population Census2 (National Statistical Service of Greece, 2001) and included in the “Panorama of Census Data 1991 - 2001” database (Greek National Center of 1 These were the LAUs in Greece according to the antecedent administrative reform in Greece (Hellenic Parliament, Law 2539/97), known as “Kapodistrias Plan”. On 1/1/2011, the recently enacted administrative reform in Greece (Hellenic Parliament, Law 3852/10), known as “Kallikratis Program”, came into force. 2 This is the penultimate Population Census held in Greece and the first one that has promulgated data on commuting flows. The latest Population Census in Greece held in 2011 and data are still under elaboration. Social Research, 2005). The aforementioned data refer to permanent population and include both daily and seasonal travel-to-work flows. Map 1: Municipalities and communities in Greece prior to “Kallikratis Program” 2. Literature Survey Even though there is an increasing bulk of literature grappled with the issue, still, there is no uniform meaning for the concept of LLMs. The definitions of LLMs as “spatially delineated areas, the boundaries of which are rarely crossed in daily journeys to work, […] with a high degree of intra-market movement” (Goodman, 1970: 184) and as “geographic areas within which transactions between buyers and sellers of labors are situated and occur on a regular basis” (Horan and Tolbert, 1984: 10) are, probably, the most well-known. Despite the lack of unanimity on the definition of LLMs, there is unanimity that the geographical dimension of the characteristics of the production process and the labor force, and the corresponding territorial partition of labor markets, set restrictions on (and, also, creates opportunities for) labor supply and demand (Efstratoglou, 2004). It is commonly accepted that in order for a critical threshold of distance from the place of living to the place of working (commuting) to be surpassed, the provision of additional incentives (besides the ones that employment itself generates) is required. This way, “burdens” that are initially not acceptable (i.e. time consumption, travel cost, change of residence) can be offset or set aside, making a job sufficiently attractive. Even though, the limits of acceptable travel may vary widely over time and with individual circumstances (Kerr, 1954), it is possible to estimate where the main weight of effective local traveling choice lies, and, consequently, to delineate LLMs, given the existing distribution of residences, jobs, and transport, by studying the extent to which workers commute (Smart, 1981). The scientific literature that falls within the field of the definition of LLMs has been significantly affected from a couple of seminal approaches. The first one is the approach of Hall et al. (1973) who attempted to define the Local Labor Market Areas (LLMAs) of England and Wales, deriving an area known as Metropolitan Economic Labor Area (MELA). MELA comprised a Core (which satisfied specific criteria concerning the number of jobs, job density, and territorial coherence), a Metropolitan Ring and an Outer Metropolitan Ring (depending on the intensity of commuting towards the corresponding Core). One problem with the aforementioned approach, particularly for planners, is that it does not exhaust the available territory. The second one is the approach of Smart (1974) who attempted to define the LLMAs of Great Britain on the basis of the concept of self-containment (i.e. the proportion of an area’s resident employed