Well-learned twenty-somethings continue to move away from rural regions. This calls for new regional policy | opinion

Many Groningen residents have lived in fear and uncertainty for years. For them, the stress of damaged houses and financial burdens remained, while the benefits of natural gas extraction have mainly flowed elsewhere. The parliamentary committee of inquiry into gas extraction is clear about this. Groningen residents must be helped as quickly as possible.

The focus was initially on earthquake damage, but gradually it is also about quality of life and confidence in politics. Many Groningen residents clearly expressed their feeling in the voting booth on Wednesday that they are not being heard by administrators in The Hague. And not only them; the discord with the Randstad can be felt in almost all regions.

After all, there are more ‘damages’ that villagers have to deal with. Bus lines that will be discontinued, shops and other facilities that will disappear. It reduces quality of life and quality of life. Those who want to go to work or go to school will be on the road longer. That takes time and money. Pre-university education students who want to continue their education are forced to move to a big city. In research into moving behavior of pre-university students that I did with CBS data, it quickly became clear that quite a few graduates never returned to their village. You could call that exodus from moving damage. Due to the annual exodus, the percentage of theoretically trained people in the region is gradually thinning out. In East Groningen, about 20 percent of adults have a higher vocational education or university degree. In the province of Utrecht there are twice as many. The Randstad region has thus become a place to live for the theoretically trained upper class. In other words: the Randstad is a vampire that sucks the blood out of the region.

Prosperous

With the right diplomas you have the best chance of a prosperous, happy and healthy life. In fact, higher vocational education and academics are more likely to live in nice houses and safe neighbourhoods. It is a prosperous upper class that has little to complain about and has confidence in politicians and administrators – often they themselves. The years of influx of talent from the countryside has contributed to extra growth of the top layer in the Randstad.

They pay the price for this in the villages and small towns. They suffer from a lack of theoretically trained people. As a result, villagers miss out on neighbors who speak the same language as the political administrators in The Hague. Instead, there are more practically educated people, benefit recipients, pensioners or people with a ‘backpack’ who often don’t have much to spend.

What CBS calls ‘broad prosperity’ is under pressure in the periphery of the Netherlands. It will come as no surprise that this translates into other political preferences. It therefore shows shameful ignorance that Sigrid Kaag once wondered about people with a different political preference: ‘Who are those people?’ It is those who stay who experience a different reality and less often speak the language of the Randstad upper class. The ‘moving damage’ ultimately manifests itself in a difference in political preference.

Pull away

The generation of people in their twenties is continuing to learn more than ever and will continue to move away from rural regions. After all, suitable jobs are concentrated in urban regions. What to do? Should journalists, doctors, lawyers still be persuaded to return to their villages to close the gap? But is there a suitable job? To that end, a different policy will really be needed to retain talent. Or should we accept the damage caused by moving as the price of the knowledge society and make an effort not to shortchange those who continue to live on the edges of the country?

prof. dr. Jan Latten is a demographer