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This paper is thus mainly intended
This paper is thus mainly intended to analyze and identify the determinants of interstate redistribution of skilled labor force in the formal Brazilian labor market with the use of a fixed-effect logit model covering the period 1995–2006. Particularly, the paper attempts to show skilled labor mobility among Brazilian states, its size and characteristics, as well as to identify its determinants within the individual decision context.
For this, the paper takes resort to a comprehensive data panel based on the Relação Anual de Informações Sociais – Migração (RAIS-MIGRA) – annual report on social information with the primarily purpose of analysing migration. These data are made available by the Ministry of Labor and Employment for the period 1995–2006, which allow determining the loss and/or gain of skilled workers in the formal Brazilian labor market resulting from labor mobility among Brazilian states. Such database allows following up longitudinally the workers’ trajectory in the Brazilian labor market by controlling their individual characteristics, as education degree for example. Additionally, data on place of origin and destination of individuals were also included in the panel, by using data from the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE – the Brazilian official institution for census and socioeconomic data) as main data source.
In addition to this introduction, this paper comprises four other sections. Section 2 presents BTL-104 determinants or skilled labor mobility as shown in the theoretical and empirical literature. The methodology used here is described in section 3. Section 4 shows the composition, features and mobility determinants of the Brazilian skilled labor force in the period 1995–2006. The conclusions can be found in the last section of the study.
Skilled labor mobility: causes and effects
Migration and labor force mobility are phenomena that play an important role in the spatial redistribution of human capital. Migration involves changing place of residence by which an individual moves from one geographic space to another intended to remain in the place of destination for some time. However, mobility does not necessarily involve moving from the place of residence, as it may only refer to changing the place of employment (Nas et al., 2001; Graversen and Friis-Jensen, 2001).
However, economic effects are what migration and mobility have in common as for skilled persons or workers. Such effects can be identified in the theoretical and empirical literature as follows: interregional and interfirm diffusion of technological knowledge (Mukkala, 2005; Graversen and Friis-jensen, 2001; Audretsch and Keilbach, 2005); and increase and/or decrease of skilled labor stock with positive or negative backwash effect on economic productivity, capacity of introducing innovation and regional and urban growth (Lucas, 1988; Bartel and Lichtenberg, 1987; Ciccone and Hall, 1996; Myrdal, 1957).
A local loss of skilled persons is a phenomenon treated as brain drain in the literature, constituting one of the several ways by which migration happens. According to Kwok and Leland (1982), the term brain drain refers to skilled professionals who move from their place of origin seeking for more promising job opportunities elsewhere. For Beine et al. (2008), this terminology means resource transference as for human capital and is mainly applied to migration of individuals with relative qualification moving from developing countries toward developed countries.
Theoretical studies have presented different motivations for brain draining. Portes (1976) offered one of the most important studies of brain drain determinants. According to this author, three sets of factors may explain brain draining. The primary determinants are related to regional inequalities between the migrant\'s origin and destination places, especially as far as pay differentials, social and research conditions are concerned. As for the secondary reasons, determinants refer to labor market differentials – skilled labor demand and supply – in the worker\'s place of origin. The tertiary determinants, on the other hand, have to do with differences among individuals. The latter are linked to differences ranging from training quality to the individual\'s social environment. According to Grubel and Scott (1976), the behavior of highly qualified workers is basically determined by the same type of market motivations and forces as those of less skilled ones. However, these authors argue that factors, such as market organization, personality and educational features of those more skilled workers, tend to influence the relative importance of the various aspects affecting their choices.