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The Great Separation: Top Earner Segregation at Work in High-Income Countries

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  • Olivier Godechot

    (Sciences Po - Sciences Po)

Abstract

Analyzing linked employer-employee panel administrative databases, we study the evolving isolation of higher earners from other employees in eleven countries: Canada, Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Norway, Spain, South Korea, and Sweden. We find in almost all countries a growing workplace isolation of top earners and dramatically declining exposure of top earners to bottom earners. We compare these trends to segregation based on occupational class, education, age, gender, and nativity, finding that the rise in top earner isolation is much more dramatic and general across countries. We find that residential segregation is also growing, although more slowly than segregation at work, with top earners and bottom earners increasingly living in different distinct municipalities. While work and residential segregation are correlated, statistical modeling suggests that the primary causal effect is from work to residential segregation. These findings open up a future research program on the causes and consequences of top earner segregation.
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  • Olivier Godechot, 2020. "The Great Separation: Top Earner Segregation at Work in High-Income Countries," Working Papers hal-03098791, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03098791
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    1. Bergeaud, Antonin & Mazet-Sonilhac, Clément & Malgouyres, Clément & Signorelli, Sara, 2021. "Technological Change and Domestic Outsourcing," IZA Discussion Papers 14603, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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