This section moves from the data to look at descriptions and explanations of cross-border labour market mobility in academic and grey literature.

The academic literature on migration and labour market migration is extensive, and it includes different perspectives and involves various scientific disciplines. This provides a rich background and framework for examining Nordic cross-border labour market mobility. However, there is also plenty of grey literature on the topic, such as reports and declarations by the Nordic Council of Ministers and its various institutions, as well as studies from cross-border regions.

Perhaps the best known theoretical model for studies of migration and drivers for mobility is the Everett Lee (1966) Push and Pull Model, which lists four factors that influence migration: 1) driving forces, 2) attraction forces, 3) intervening obstacles, and 4) personal factors. The model indicates that the decision to migrate is based on when the push factors outweigh the pull factors (Barcus and Halfacree, 2018).

Another well-known model takes an evolutionary perspective as its point of departure. The Mobility Transition Model (MTM) says that migration follows trends for demographic transition and modernisation and consists of five phases: 1) migration between rural areas, 2) migration from rural areas to urban areas, 3) migration to urban areas, 4) migration to rural areas and 5) migration between urban areas (Barcus and Halfacree, 2018).

Economic theories can help explain the relationships between quantifiable variables that influence migration, such as wages and unemployment. Transaction cost analyses and institutional theory can help explain how formal and informal rules, such as legal barriers but also language, norms and culture, can enable and hinder exchanges and mobility across national borders. Furthermore,  sociological and behavioural theories focus on the behaviour and rationale of individuals.

According to Barcus and Halfacree (2018), migration can be related to work, study or lifestyle. It can also be involuntary – refugees, for example. Whereas local migration usually implies moving shorter distances and is driven by family, housing or neighbourhood considerations, work migration is motivated by labour market demands and career development. Study opportunities influence students, while those moving for reasons of lifestyle change are motivated by the desire for a better quality of life.

If we zoom into research literature on the Nordic countries, we find several explanations for cross-border labour market mobility. Some of them relate to economic arguments, such as cyclical and structural rationales, including wage level differences and labour market demand, whereas other explanations relate more to freedom of movement and the opportunities for taking jobs in other Nordic countries. Many of the studies covered by our literature review are quantitative, however, and only to a limited extent explore the motivations for migration or commuting.

Recurring explanations include the joint Nordic labour market, the passport union and the agreement banning discrimination in the labour market against citizens of other Nordic countries, which were introduced 70 years ago and have facilitated and bolstered cross-border labour market mobility (Korkisaari & Söderling, 2003).

Other explanations frequently pointed out are the similarities between the Nordic countries, in particular those relating to labour market policy and the way the labour markets are organised (Ho & Shirono, 2015), which is assumed to reduce obstacles to taking a job in another Nordic country. However, other commonalities can also be expected to play a role, such as those relating to social security and goals and policies relating to economic and social equality, which are similar and unite the Nordic countries (Shuttleworth et al. 2018).

As regards the motivation for moving to a job in another country, some research literature point to the ones being related to the environment, career development, improving knowledge of a language, the desire for new cultural and life experiences and social relationships (Lundholm et al.2004; Korkisaari & Söderling, 2003). This is in line with Lundholm (2007), who explored the motivations for relocating in a Nordic context (both changing residence within the Nordic countries and across national borders) and found that relocation was often voluntary and based on social and environmental concerns rather than primarily motivated by a change of job and workplace.

Even though the main motivations found in those studies were not economic, Ho and Shirono (2015) point to economic motivations relating to cyclical economic factors, i.e. economic differences between the Nordic countries in terms of wages and employment. Möller et al. (2018) explored cross-border mobility across the Swedish-Norwegian border and found that it is related to distance and proximity. This is, in all probability, a general pattern (e.g. Heleniak, 2020) and is also confirmed by the data presented in this report.

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Apart from the research literature on cross-border labour market mobility, a plethora of other policy documents and reports also relate to cross-border mobility in the Nordic Region.

The most important is perhaps the Nordic Council of Ministers’ vision’ of the Region being the most sustainable and integrated region in the world by 2030. This vision guides the Council’s work, and seamless mobility and digital integration are considered to be key factors in creating an integrated and competitive Nordic Region (NCM, 2020). The Nordic labour market model is seen as key to reaching this goal. The model involves strong trade unions and collaboration between the social partners, i.e. unions and employers working together to provide both flexibility and security for the workforce (Jesnes et al. 2020).

The freedom of movement and joint Nordic labour market established in the 1950s are fundamental to Nordic co-operation. In 1952, passport-free travel was introduced between the Nordic countries. This was followed in 1958 by a more clearly defined Nordic Passport Union (a forerunner of the modern Schengen agreement). The joint Nordic labour market came into force in 2 July 1954 (a precursor of the free mobility of labour that would later characterise the EU) and the Nordic Convention on Social Security was implemented in 1955 (Nordic Council, n.d.a.).

Following the vision, the Nordic Council of Ministers states that the free movement of people and businesses, should be enabled by breaking down obstacles to mobility and to economic growth. For example, its Freedom of Movement Council is tasked with identifying and breaking down obstacles to freedom of movement (Nordic Council of Ministers, n.d.c.). The Nordic Mobility Action Programme 2019–21 outlined how progress will be made toward these goals by supporting and facilitating mobility, for example, promoting digitalisation, the recognition of qualifications from other Nordic countries to facilitate the mobility of workers and students, and closer collaboration on the implementation of EU legislation (Nordic Council of Ministers, 2019).

The Nordic Future of Work project (2017-2021) identified challenges faced by the Nordic labour markets and highlighted that policies to support cross-border mobility are obvious ones on which to work together at the Nordic level. However, other labour market challenges are also of relevance in a cross-border context, such as the legal position of workers in platform companies, taxation policies and competition policies for international big tech companies (Alsos & Dølvik, 2021). Issues of social security and the transfer of retirement pensions are also frequently brought up, for example, in a Nordic-Baltic study in 2013 (Kahila et al., 2013).

To make up for the lack of comparative statistics and statistics on cross-border mobility, the Nordic Council of Ministers ran a project 2016–2020 involving the statistical institutes from Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

The report Nordic Cross-border Statistics represents a first step towards the systematic and collective collation of data on Nordic mobility. The project improved the quality of statistics on cross-border mobility, and results were published in the open Nordic statistics database. Collecting the statistics is more difficult than it may sound, partly due to legal obstacles imposed by data protection legislation and rules governing the exchange of personal information (micro-data) across national borders, and partly due to different methods of collecting data. However, the need for reliable cross-border statistics on mobility remains undisputed, and the Nordic Council of Ministers has called for the collation of these statistics to be made permanent. As part of the Council’s work on digitalisation, “permanent solutions for cross-border data exchange and co-operation between authorities will be created” (Nordic Council of Ministers, n.d.c., Nordic Council of Ministers, n.d.d.). However, an initial report focusing on Nordic co-operation in education, health and legislative affairs shows that the legal obstacles and technical challenges of interoperability between different national systems should not be underestimated. Stepping up work on cross-border statistics will require both financial resources and a clear political will and motivation that weighs the benefits of shared statistics in various areas against the costs (Dahl et al., 2022).

The call for better statistics on cross-border mobility comes not only from national level authorities but also to a high degree from the cross-border regions in the Nordic Region. By their very nature, they possess extensive local and regional knowledge of cross-border mobility in their own regions.

In studies conducted by different actors in the cross-border regions (e.g. regional and local employment services, business organisations and chambers of commerce, cross-border organisations and committees from all of the Nordic border regions), we find results for obstacles to cross-border mobility similar to the ones presented previously. The most frequent barriers and challenges to cross-border mobility are, for example, temporary ID checks, social security issues, challenges with taxation and banking, pension payments, transport issues and difficulties verifying professional qualifications. In addition, digital communication across the Nordic Region does not always work, and non-EU citizens encounter problems in commuting between Nordic countries (Øresund Direkt, n.d.).

The long history of collaboration between municipalities and regions across Nordic borders represents a huge asset for many regions. Aside from social relations across borders, the soft-border collaboration enables labour mobility and the expansion or complementarity of supply chains. Considering the low population density in many areas, collaboration with actors (e.g. between municipalities, business organisations and other institutions) on the other side of the border allows for greater critical mass to boost competitiveness and for public authorities to make their public services accessible to larger groups (Giacometti et al., 2019). Collaboration across borders expands the market for products and services as well as it extends the labour market area and makes cross-border regions economically stronger (Wøien, 2019). Cross-border labour mobility has also been seen as important in closing some of the skills gaps in particular border regions. While mobility may entail the risk of a brain-drain of highly educated people, it perhaps represents even more of an opportunity to gain skills from cross-border networks and complementary labour markets (Giacometti & Cuadrado, 2020).

Challenges to freedom of movement and cross-border mobility are often addressed by cross-border actors in reports and sometimes lobbied for at the national and international levels. Sometimes political support is achieved, but often the results are mixed. There is strong local, regional and international level support, for example, from the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers, for improved conditions for cross-border mobility. However, while these issues are also addressed at the national level, the weaknesses of the freedom of movement principle often become clear when crises occur. During the refugee crisis of 2015/16 and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020/21, the national governments were quick to impose restrictions that limited freedom of movement. This shows that in the event of a crisis, the autonomy of the nation-state and the national governments’ priorities at the time outweigh the perspectives of the cross-border regions.

Temporary ID checks, social security issues, challenges with taxation and banking, pension payments and transport issues affect labour mobility. Photographer: Christiaan Dirksen