Spatial wage disparities and household location choices

Disparités spatiales de revenus et choix de localisation des ménages

Mylène Feuillade
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Mylène Feuillade: ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: How do household decisions shape gender disparities in labor market outcomes? This dissertation examines the intersection of labor markets, household decision-making, geography, and gender gaps in earnings through three complementary studies using French administrative data. The first chapter analyzes how geographic mobility affects men and women differently within couples. Using a stacked difference-in-differences approach, I find that household relocations systematically prioritize men's careers over women's, with women experiencing income losses and unemployment increases following moves, even when they are the primary earners. This suggests gender norms, rather than pure income maximization, drive household location decisions. The second chapter investigates whether the urban wage premium (the productivity benefits of working in dense cities) varies by gender and family structure. I find that women benefit significantly more from urban density than men, but that this advantage is almost entirely eliminated for mothers of young children, indicating that childcare constraints limit women's ability to capitalize on agglomeration economies. The third chapter explores work from-home arrangements and their household spillovers, revealing strong complementarities between spouses' remote work decisions and important cross-effects on the working hours of primary earners (mostly men) who increase their working time when their spouse works from home. Together, these findings demonstrate the importance of considering the household dimension when studying the labor market outcomes of men and women.

Keywords: Household behavior; Gender gap in earnings; Urban wage premium; Household mobility; Comportement des ménages; Ecart salarial entre hommes et femmes; Prime salariale urbaine; Mobilité des ménages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-09-30
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Published in Economics and Finance. Institut d'études politiques de paris - Sciences Po, 2025. English. ⟨NNT : 2025IEPP0035⟩

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