La dynamique spatiale des marchés locaux de l'emploi au sein du champ métropolitain de Québec, 1981–2001

Abstract

Spatial Dynamics of Local Labour Markets in the Québec City Metropolitan Field, 1981–2001 This research analyzes the spatial dynamics (from 1981 to 2001) of local labour markets at an infra‐regional scale, namely the Québec metropolitan field, with particular emphasis on interactions between the metropolitan region and its hinterland. It seeks to better understand the factors underlying this evolution. Centrographic analyses were performed to characterize the evolution of the spatial configuration of local labour markets (displacement of gravity centre, shape change, evolution of dispersion indices and of workforce preferential distribution axes). Between 1981 and 2001, almost all employment poles experienced an increase in the mean‐distance tied to their recruitment area, that being particularly true for peri‐metropolitan poles which employ an increasing part of their workforce inside the metropolitan labour basin, where a more qualified and diversified labour force is available; thus, giving rise to significant reverse commuting. In addition to the influence of distance to metropolitan area, a multiple regression model shows that factors such as manufacturing specialization and employment growth within job centres also play a crucial role in the spatial dynamics of local labour markets in the Québec City metropolitan field.

A method to test the significance of differences between centrographic measures of dispersion

“…To give some examples of their use in social sciences, centrographic measures have been used to analyze the spatial patterns of automobile accidents in Honolulu (Levine et al 1995), the dynamics of local labour markets and the mobility patterns of elderly residents in the Quebec City Metropolitan Area (Barbonne et al 2007;Lord et al 2009), the relocation of logistic terminals in the Paris Metropolitan Area (Dablanc and Rakotonarivo 2010), the evolution of the American population by religious affiliation (Crawford 2005), the employment pools of commuting women and men using various transport modes and having different family structures (Vandersmissen et al 2011), and the spatial dispersion of retail stores in Changchun, China (Wang et al 2014). Centrographic analysis has also been used in natural sciences, for instance, to describe the spatial distribution of mineral deposits (Mamuse et al 2009), to identify the potential alignment of underlying geological structures through the spatial characterization of volcanic events (Bishop 2007), and to recommend The Canadian Geographer / Le G eographe canadien 2018, xx(xx): 1-14 A method to test the significance of differences 3 328 Marco A. López-Castro, Marius Thériault, and Marie-Hél ène Vandersmissen improvements in maritime search and rescue planning by considering the spatial patterns of sea incidents (Marven et al 2007).…”