González-Leonardo, MiguelLópez-Gay, AntonioEsteve, Albert2023-05-162023-05-162022González-Leonardo M, López-Gay A, Esteve A. Interregional migration of human capital in Spain. Reg Stud Reg Sci. 2022;9(1):324-42. DOI: 10.1080/21681376.2022.20601312168-1376http://hdl.handle.net/10230/56824While levels of internal mobility have been trending down in many advanced economies, the interregional migration rates of Spanish young adults have increased. This paper analyses the internal movements of the Spanish-born population aged 25–39 between NUTS-2 regions from 1992 to 2018, including sub-periods linked to the Spanish economic context. The analysis incorporates the urban–rural dimension within each region and the educational level of migrants, a variable that has not been included in Spanish internal migration studies. We used flow register data of migration and sociodemographic information from the Labor Force Survey. The results show that migrations between regions have become more unbalanced over time, especially since the 2008 crisis. In addition, a new trend of out-migration from cities in peripheral regions has been detected, which contrasts with the former high level of rural out-migration. A great educational selectivity of out-migrants and a growing internal brain drain have also been found. Moreover, qualified human capital accumulation has been increasing in Madrid.application/pdfeng© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21681376.2022.2060131internal migrationperipheral regionsshrinking citiesselective migrationinterregional brain drainhuman capital accumulationinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess