The use of commuting data to define local labour market areas and urban areas in Spain

Abstract

The definition of local labour market areas and other functional areas has attracted much attention during recent decades. The development of this line of research in Spain has however been restricted by the lack of statistical data on commuting for the whole country. This will change thanks to the Census of Population 2001. Prior to it, data were only available for some regions and cities, and that is the reason why only in these areas research comparable to the European and American experience in the field has been carried out. The first part of this paper explores the concept of local labour market area and surveys the analyses developed in Spain on this issue. The second part of the paper consists of an empirical exercise of definition of local labour market areas in the region of Valencia using data from the 1991 Census of Population. Regionalisations have been produced for the aggregate working population and for a set of sub-groups into which the employed population was classified in the Census according to occupation.