The concentration of population toward the Seoul Capital Area (SCA) continues with the ongoing (net) flow of youth into the SCA. While many policies at the local level are introduced to reduce the (net) outflow of young people, those policies’ effectiveness is often questionable. It is crucial for policymakers to understand the key determinants of the location choice of young people and base the choice of a policy mix on the information.

The first chapter, the introduction of the entire study, discusses the necessity of an integrated view for supporting both local areas and young people. The second chapter delves into the interregional migration of youth, focusing on college education and job search. Using plausibly exogenous shocks at each stage, the author finds that the change in migration at college education is mostly temporary at the affected margin. Conversely, a local recession at the time of college graduation significantly increases the “return movement” of youth toward their previous hometown, particularly for those who grew up in the SCA. The third chapter, a joint work of Joseph Han (KDI) and Chamna Yoon (KAIST), estimates a structural model of two-stage location choice from micro-level data. Policy experiments show that subsidizing “local employment” of “local talents” yields the most cost-effective outcomes at both stages among the policy options considered. The supports for local colleges and universities are ineffective for local settlement, although those supports are still valid for other policy goals such as quality education and research. The last chapter concludes with policy implications.

Preface
Executive Summary

Chapter 1: Introduction: Localities and Youth

Chapter 2: Inter-regional Mobility and Connectivity in the Stages of Advancement and Employment
　Section 1: Inter-regional Mobility of the Youth
　Section 2: Inter-regional Mobility of the Youth: Trends and Status
　Section 3: Inter-regional Mobility in the Stages of Advancement and Employment
　Section 4: Empirical Analysis on Inter-regional Mobility at the Time of Advancement and Employment (1): Population Size Variation of High School Graduates
　Section 5: Empirical Analysis on Inter-regional Mobility at the Time of Advancement and Employment (2): Local Labor Market Conditions at the Time of Graduation
　Section 6: Conclusion

Chapter 3: Choice of Region by the Youth: Structural Model Approach
　Section 1: Introduction
　Section 2: Model
　Section 3: Data
　Section 4: Estimation of the Model
　Section 5: Estimation Results
　Section 6: Policy Experiment
　Section 7: Conclusion

Chapter 4: Conclusion and Policy Implications

References
ABSTRACT