Rural areas as winners of COVID-19, digitalization and remote working? Empirical evidence from recent internal migration in Germany

Louis Knuepling; Rolf Sternberg; Anne Otto

doi:10.1093/cjres/rsae033

Rural areas as winners of COVID-19, digitalization and remote working? Empirical evidence from recent internal migration in Germany

Louis Knuepling, Rolf Sternberg^*, Anne Otto

^*Corresponding author for this work

Innovation Studies

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused economic crises and increased inter-regional economic disparities. However, the catalyst effect that the pandemic has had on digitalization may change the traditional pattern of internal migration, in favour of rural areas. Using time-sensitive register data we explain changes in net migration rates of German districts from an economic geography perspective. We show that, since the beginning of the pandemic, rural regions benefited more from migration. In particular, younger and highly skilled individuals increasingly move to rural areas. This confirms that rural regions can benefit from increasing remote work, but these effects differ across region types and individual skill levels.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	227-248
Number of pages	22
Journal	Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society
Volume	18
Issue number	1
Early online date	29 Oct 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsae033
Publication status	Published - 1 Mar 2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.

Funding

We are grateful to the German Research Association (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)) for funding the ongoing research project "Regional economic disparities in the aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak: the role of digitalization and working-from-home" (ReDiCOV) the paper is based upon (Grant STE 628/23-1). Also, our thanks go to the participants of the following events for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper: CJRES Conference on "Global Crises, Mega Trends and Regional Development" in Cambridge 2023, 7th Geography of Innovation Conference in Manchester 2024, 16th Rauischholzhausener Symposium zur Wirtschaftsgeographie in Rauischholzhausen/Germany 2023, 61st ERSA Conference in Pecs/Hungary 2022, 6th Geography of Innovation Conference in Milano 2022 and 5th workshop of the Young Economic Geographers Network (YEGN) in Cork/Ireland 2022.

Funders	Funder number
German Research Association (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG))	STE 628/23-1

Keywords

COVID-19
digitalization
highly skilled labour
migration
rural regions

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Cite this

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Rural areas as winners of COVID-19, digitalization and remote working? Empirical evidence from recent internal migration in Germany

Abstract

Bibliographical note

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Keywords

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