From Core to Periphery? Assessing Remote Works Potential to Rebalance EU Regional Development

TL;DR

This study investigates how remote work influences residential mobility and regional development in the EU, finding it mainly benefits urban and peri-urban areas rather than rural regions.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence on remote work-driven mobility patterns and their limited impact on redistributing populations to peripheral rural areas in Europe.

Findings

Most relocations occur within the same urbanization tier (67%).

Quality-of-life is the main motivation for relocation (78%).

Increased remote work intensity raises relocation probability by 6.5 percentage points.

Abstract

The rapid expansion of remote work following the last pandemic has renewed interest in whether spatial decoupling of residence from workplace can contribute to rebalancing regional development across the European Union. This paper examines four interrelated dimensions of remote work-induced residential mobility using the R-MAP survey dataset, a large-scale cross-sectional survey of over 7,400 remote workers across Europe collected in 2024. First, the spatial direction of post-2020 relocations is analysed, revealing that mobility occurs overwhelmingly within the same urbanisation tier, with urban-to-urban moves accounting for 67% of all relocations. Counter-urban flows to- ward rural areas remain marginal at just 2% of moves, though their relative demograph- ic impact on small rural populations is non-trivial. Second, the motivational structure of relocation decisions is examined, showing that quality-of-life considerations dominate (cited by 78% of movers), followed by economic and housing factors (70%), while digital infrastructure ranks among the least cited reasons. Third, amenity preferences are compared across residential contexts, documenting striking convergence between urban and rural remote workers, with statistically significant differences emerging only for public transport and restaurant access. Fourth, logistic regression models reveal that remote work intensity is a consistent positive predictor of relocation probability, with a transition from 50% to fully remote work associated with a 6.5 percentage point in- crease in relocation likelihood. Age, education, and industry sector also shape mobility patterns. Overall, the findings suggest that remote work primarily stretches metropolitan systems and reinforces peri-urban zones rather than triggering large-scale redistribution toward structurally weaker peripheral regions.