Oportunidades de emprego e migração qualificada nos municípios brasileiros

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to verify the effect of employment opportunities (unemployment rate) on local skilled internal migrants (immigration rate) in Brazilian municipalities. Studies on the Economics of Migration suggest that the variables employment/unemployment, income, human capital, size of cities, cost of living and distance from the regions of the municipalities of origin. The literature review shows that more skilled people who migrate tend to move to larger cities. Thus, it starts with a theoretical and analytical model based on the New Economic Geography, in which specific characteristics of the most dynamic regions tend to attract greater flows of transactions or people. The model for determining skilled migration includes the variables observed in Brazilian municipalities, the unemployment rate for those over 16 years of age. The explanatory variables were separated by economic, social, demographic and human capital blocks. It was verified the probability that the most qualified (inter-municipal) migrants are attracted to the municipalities due to the better job opportunities in the destination municipalities. Econometric analysis of the data showed an expected negative relationship between skilled migration (migration rate) and employment opportunities (unemployment rate). The methodology was based on the estimation of OLS models with multiplicative dummy variables of region and agglomeration, using a panel database with fixed and cross-section effects, with migration data from Brazilian municipalities for the years 1991, 2000 and 2010. The results showed that there may be a reduction in the importance of job opportunities in large cities of around -30.3%. It is worth mentioning that large cities have another type of attractor for migrants – which may be linked to urban amenities and the scale of the city itself. Regarding the Regions, job opportunities in the South and Central-West regions presented an expected negative sign, indicating a respective increase of 48.0% and 130.0% in relation to Brazil, while for the Northeast Region the sign shown was positive, indicating an unexpected decrease of -67.0% compared to benchmarking.