Influencia del binomio residencia-trabajo en el desarrollo económico y social aragonés

Abstract

This research examines whether the existence of labour flows between Aragonese municipalities, caused by the separation of workplace and residence, provide different types of economic development. More specifically, we study how the existence of spatial interactions, promoted by the dynamics of commuting between municipalities, may be associated with socioeconomic development. To that aim, in the first part of the work, we establish a Bayesian statistical methodology to measure the connectivity of a collection of localities considered as residence and workplaces, from their daily labour matrix of flows. In particular, the methodology allows distinguish which part of the connectivity of a locality is determined by its geographical location, and which part is due to the difficulty of access to it, measured from its labour travel time . Using data concerning the residence-job mobility in Aragon from the last Spanish National Census (2001) we quantify the connectivity degree of Aragonese municipalities, both as residence and workplaces. In addition, we identify the areas of Aragón with a higher degree of connectivity. In the second part of the work, we analyze the relationship between the connectivity level of each municipality and their degree of socioeconomic development. To this end, we have selected a comprehensive set of socioeconomic indicators related to education, services, economy, housing and quality of life aspects, and we describe the socioeconomic, labour and demographic situation of Aragón in 2001. Subsequently, we investigate the relationship of the selected indicators to the connectivity levels of each municipality, both at univariate and multivariate levels. The results obtained show that the areas of highest level of connectivity tend to be located in the main industrial and services centres of Aragón. This fact highlights the importance of the degree of connectivity of the Aragonese localities when designing policies to improve the socioeconomic development and the life quality of Aragonese citizens.