Different strokes for different folks: Remote work, heterogeneity, and restructuring of relocation networks in the Netherlands

Remote work is relaxing conventional workplace-residence constraints, yet how it reorganizes relocation systems remains unclear. Existing studies largely focus on individual moves or place-level population change, with less attention to the direction of origin-destination structure and demographic heterogeneity of flows. Using annual inter-municipal relocation flows in the Netherlands, the study reconstructs directed relocation networks of age, nationality, marital status and sex through iterative proportional fitting (IPF) of observed origin-destination (OD) totals and demographic margins. The study combines pre-pandemic local industry structure with sectoral remote-work growth above prior trends to construct remote-work exposure. It uses Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood regressions with high-dimensional fixed effects (HDFE-PPML) models to distinguish destination absorption, origin release and demographic differences in relocation mobility. The results indicate that the Dutch relocation system is persistently asymmetric and demographically layered. Following the pandemic shock, such flows shifted towards more highly exposed destinations, while highly exposed origins did not correspondingly release more residents. Significant heterogeneity is also evident across age, nationality and marital status. The findings reveal that the pandemic-accelerated transition of remote work is associated with asymmetric population reallocation between municipalities and uneven destination responses across population groups. The flexibility emerging from this transition is unevenly translated and may reinforce spatial inequality across places and populations, challenging the expectation that remote work will broadly promote regional rebalancing.