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Family Migration and Relative Earnings Potentials

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  • Mette Foged

    (University of Copenhagen)

Abstract

I document that couples are more likely to migrate if household income is disproportionally due to one partner, and that families react equally strong to a male and female relative earnings advantage. A unitarian model of family migration in which families may discount wives’ private gains is used to derive testable implications regarding the type of couples that select into migrating. The empirical tests show that gender-neutral family migration cannot be rejected against the alternative of husband-centered migration. The lower response of family migration to the human capital held wives than the human capital of husbands, documented in the literature, may be attributed to more intense colocation problems and lower income among female-headed households. The more severe colocation problem stems from stronger educational homogamy among highly educated women relative to highly educated men. The results hold for internal as well as international migration of couples

Suggested Citation

  • Mette Foged, 2014. "Family Migration and Relative Earnings Potentials," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 1429, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    • Handle: RePEc:crm:wpaper:1429
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    Cited by:

    1. Martin Junge & Martin D. Munk & Panu Poutvaara, 2013. "International Migration of Couples," Norface Discussion Paper Series 2013018, Norface Research Programme on Migration, Department of Economics, University College London.
    2. Man Yao & Tori I. Rehr & Erica P. Regan, 2023. "Gender Differences in Financial Knowledge among College Students: Evidence from a Recent Multi-institutional Survey," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 693-713, September.
    3. Diana Tam & Arthur Grimes, 2023. "Migration of dual-earner couples: a subjective wellbeing approach," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 269-289, March.
    4. Toman Barsbai & Andreas Steinmayr & Christoph Winter, 2022. "Immigrating into a Recession: Evidence from Family Migrants to the U.S," Working Papers 2022-01, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    5. Bredemeier, Christian & Ndlovu, Patrick & Vujic, Suncica & Winkler, Roland, 2024. "Household Decisions and the Gender Gap in Job Satisfaction," IZA Discussion Papers 16760, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Martin D Munk & Till Nikolka & Panu Poutvaara, 2022. "International family migration and the dual-earner model [On the origin of gender roles: women and the plough]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(2), pages 263-287.
    7. Tano, Sofia & Nakosteen, Robert & Westerlund, Olle & Zimmer, Michael, 2018. "Youth-age characteristics as precursors of power couple formation and location choice," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 98-111.
    8. Olivier Bargain & Jordan Loper & Roberta Ziparo, 2024. "Women's Empowerment and Husband's Migration: Evidence from Indonesia," CERDI Working papers hal-04409953, HAL.
    9. Christine Braun & Charlie Nusbaum & Peter Rupert, 2021. "Labor Market Dynamics and the Migration Behavior of Married Couples," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 42, pages 239-263, October.
    10. Sihong Xiong & Ya Wu & Shihai Wu & Fang Chen & Jianzhong Yan, 2020. "Determinants of migration decision-making for rural households: a case study in Chongqing, China," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 104(2), pages 1623-1639, November.
    11. Averkamp, Dorothée & Bredemeier, Christian & Juessen, Falko, 2021. "Decomposing Gender Wage Gaps - A Family Economics Perspective," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242361, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Internationalmigration; familymigration; colocationproblem; selection;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • D19 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Other
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers

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