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Power Couples: Changes in the Locational Choice of the College Educated, 1940-1990

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Author Info
Dora L. Costa
Matthew E. Kahn

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Abstract

The rise of the dual career household is a recent phenomenon spurred by the increase in married women's labor force participation rates and educational attainment rates. Compared to traditional households these households must solve a colocation problem. This paper documents trends in locational choice between large and small metropolitan areas and non-metropolitan areas by household type from 1940 to 1990. We find that college educated couples are increasingly concentrated in large metropolitan areas and attribute at least half of this increase to the growing severity of the colocation problem. We also find that the relative returns for a college-educated couple of being in a large relative to a small city have increased across decades. Our results suggest that because skilled professionals are increasingly bundled with an equally skilled spouse, smaller cities may experience reduced inflows of human capital relative to the past and therefore become poorer. We examine how the relationship between rankings of university graduate programs and city size has changed between 1970 and 1990 to provide suggestive evidence on the importance of city size to firms' ability to attract the best workers.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 7109.

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Date of creation: May 1999
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7109

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J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
R2 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics - - Household Analysis

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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Krupka, Douglas J., 2008. "On Amenities, Natural Advantage and Agglomeration," IZA Discussion Papers 3598, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  2. David S. Loughran & Julie M. Zissimopoulos, 2004. "Are There Gains to Delaying Marriage? The Effect of Age at First Marriage on Career Development and Wages," Working Papers 207, RAND Corporation Publications Department. [Downloadable!]
  3. Guido de Blasio, 2006. "Production or consumption? Disentangling the skill-agglomeration connection," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 571, Bank of Italy, Economic Research Department. [Downloadable!]
  4. Alberto Dalmazzo & Guido de Blasio, 2005. "Where do human capital externalities end up?," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 554, Bank of Italy, Economic Research Department. [Downloadable!]
  5. Beckstead, Desmond & Brown, W. Mark & Newbold, Bruce, 2008. "Cities and Growth: In Situ Versus Migratory Human Capital Growth," The Canadian Economy in Transition 2008019e, Statistics Canada, Economic Analysis Division. [Downloadable!]
  6. Jonathan F. Pingle, 2006. "The relocation decisions of working couples," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2006-33, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  7. Gautier, Pieter A. & Svarer, Michael & Teulings, Coen N., 2005. "Marriage and the City," IZA Discussion Papers 1491, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Henry G. Overman & Diego Puga, 2008. "Labour pooling as a source of agglomeration: An empirical investigation," Working Papers 2008-05, Instituto MadrileƱo de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA) Ciencias Sociales. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  9. Maristella Botticini & Aloysius Siow, 2008. "Are there Increasing Returns in Marriage Markets?," Working Papers tecipa-333, University of Toronto, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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