Cross‐border commuting in the Danish‐German border region ‐ integration, institutions and cross‐border interaction

Although the process of European integration has facilitated labour mobility in the EU to a considerable extent, cross‐border commuting is still at a low level. We provide evidence on labour mobility in the Danish‐German border region. The objective of this paper is to investigate the recent development of cross‐border commuting in the region and whether this reflects increasing labour market integration. We re‐late the development to different theories on cross‐border labour mobility. Our results suggest that much of the pronounced growth of cross‐border commuting is caused by labour market disparities and a proceeding integration of labour markets on both sides of the border. However, an analysis of structural characteristics of cross‐border commuters and their working places indicates that the cross‐border labour market still has specific features. There are significant differences between cross‐border commuters on both sides of the border with respect to income and main branches of employment. Moreover, the analysis points to a pronounced sectoral concentration of cross‐border workers. Due to this “specialisation” there are distinct differences be‐tween the sectoral distribution of cross‐border commuters and the corresponding structure of total employment in the region.