IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v33y2001i3p419-430.html

‘Trailing Wife’ or ‘Trailing Mother’? The Effect of Parental Status on the Relationship between Family Migration and the Labor-Market Participation of Married Women

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas J Cooke

    (Department of Geography, 354 Mansfield Road, U-148, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269-2148, USA)

Abstract

Numerous studies demonstrate that married women sacrifice their own careers in order to support their husbands' careers by following them as tied migrants, largely independent of their own occupational status. Thus, it appears as if family migration is shaped by the dominant gender roles and gender identities which configure the lives of women and men in married couple families. The motivation for this paper stems from a concern that family migration research has failed to consider that the effects of family migration on the labor-market participation of married women may be contingent on parental status. This research is designed to uncover the individual and joint effects of migration and parental status on married women's labor-market participation. The approach taken in this research is to begin with a very specific type of married couple family—married couple families without children—and to trace how the birth of the first child and migration events independently and jointly determine women's labor-market participation over a 5-year time span. The data for the analysis are drawn from the 1987 through 1992 Family File of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Random effects probit models of labor-force participation and employment indicate a small, short-lived, impact of migration on the employment of married women without children—but for married women with children the negative effects of family migration on both labor force participation and employment are large and endure for many years.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas J Cooke, 2001. "‘Trailing Wife’ or ‘Trailing Mother’? The Effect of Parental Status on the Relationship between Family Migration and the Labor-Market Participation of Married Women," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 33(3), pages 419-430, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:33:y:2001:i:3:p:419-430
    DOI: 10.1068/a33140
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a33140
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a33140?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tolbert, Charles M. & Sizer, Molly, 1996. "U.S. Commuting Zones and Labor Market Areas: A 1990 Update," Staff Reports 278812, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sergi Vidal & Philipp M. Lersch, 2019. "Changes in gender role attitudes following couples' residential relocations," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 40(39), pages 1111-1152.
    2. Jeremy Burke & Amalia R. Miller, 2018. "The Effects Of Job Relocation On Spousal Careers: Evidence From Military Change Of Station Moves," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(2), pages 1261-1277, April.
    3. Clara Mulder, 2018. "Putting family centre stage: Ties to nonresident family, internal migration, and immobility," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 39(43), pages 1151-1180.
    4. Sergi Vidal & Johannes Huinink, 2019. "Introduction to the special collection on spatial mobility, family dynamics, and gender relations," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 41(21), pages 593-616.
    5. Zhengyu Cai & Heather M. Stephens & John V. Winters, 2019. "Motherhood, migration, and self-employment of college graduates," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 611-629, October.
    6. Paul Boyle & Thomas Cooke & Keith Halfacree & Darren Smith, 2001. "A cross-national comparison of the impact of family migration on women’s employment status," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(2), pages 201-213, May.
    7. Murray-Close, Marta, 2019. "Living Far Apart Together: Dual-Career Location Constraints and Marital Noncohabitation," SocArXiv a9dc8, Center for Open Science.
    8. William A.V. Clark & Suzanne Davies Withers, 2007. "Family migration and mobility sequences in the United States," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 17(20), pages 591-622.
    9. Paul Boyle & Thomas Cooke & Keith Halfacree & Darren Smith, 2003. "The Effect of Long-Distance Family Migration and Motherhood on Partnered Women's Labour-Market Activity Rates in Great Britain and the USA," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 35(12), pages 2097-2114, December.
    10. Karina Nilsson, 2003. "Moving into the City and Moving Out Again: Swedish Evidence from the Cohort Born in 1968," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 40(7), pages 1243-1258, June.
    11. Preston, Kate & Grimes, Arthur, 2017. "Migration and Gender: Who Gains and in Which Ways?," Motu Working Papers 290518, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.
    12. Sandra Krapf & Clara H. Mulder & Michael Wagner, 2022. "The Transition to a Coresidential Partnership: Who Moves and Who Has the Partner Move In?," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 41(2), pages 757-779, April.
    13. William A V Clark & Suzanne Davies Withers, 2002. "Disentangling the Interaction of Migration, Mobility, and Labor-Force Participation," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 34(5), pages 923-945, May.
    14. Kate Preston & Arthur Grimes, 2019. "Migration, Gender, Wages and Wellbeing: Who Gains and in Which Ways?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(3), pages 1415-1452, August.
    15. Paul Boyle & Thomas J. Cooke & Keith Halfacree & Darren Smith, 2002. "A cross‐national study of the effects of family migration on women's labour market status: some difficulties with integrating microdata from two censuses," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 165(3), pages 465-480, October.
    16. Vidal, Sergi & Lersch, Philipp M., 2019. "Changes in gender role attitudes following couples' residential relocations," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 0(39), pages 1111-1152.
    17. Boheim, Rene & Taylor, Mark P., 2007. "From the dark end of the street to the bright side of the road? The wage returns to migration in Britain," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 99-117, January.
    18. Suman, 2018. "Gendered Migrations and Literary Narratives: Writing Communities in South Asian Diaspora," Millennial Asia, , vol. 9(1), pages 93-108, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Choi, Kyungsoo, 2022. "Job creation during Korea's transition to a knowledge economy," KDI Journal of Economic Policy, Korea Development Institute (KDI), vol. 44(3), pages 75-99.
    2. Nicholas Kacher & Luke Petach, 2021. "Boon or Burden? Evaluating the Competing Effects of House-Price Shocks on Regional Entrepreneurship," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 35(4), pages 287-304, November.
    3. Ferdinando Monte & Stephen J. Redding & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2018. "Commuting, Migration, and Local Employment Elasticities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(12), pages 3855-3890, December.
    4. Fabian Eckert & Andrés Gvirtz & Jack Liang & Michael Peters, 2020. "A Method to Construct Geographical Crosswalks with an Application to US Counties since 1790," NBER Working Papers 26770, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Patrick Kline & Emmanuel Saez, 2014. "Where is the land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1553-1623.
    6. David Autor & David Dorn, 2009. "This Job Is "Getting Old": Measuring Changes in Job Opportunities Using Occupational Age Structure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 45-51, May.
    7. Younjun Kim & Eric Thompson, 2021. "Routine-Biased Technological Change and Declining Employment Rate of Immigrants," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 47(3), pages 319-353, June.
    8. Nikhil Kaza & Katherine Nesse, 2021. "Characterizing the Regional Structure in the United States: A County-based Analysis of Labor Market Centrality," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 44(5), pages 560-581, September.
    9. Kropp, Per & Schwengler, Barbara, 2017. "Stability of functional labour market regions," IAB-Discussion Paper 201721, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    10. Dorn, David & Autor, David & Hanson, Gordon, 2017. "When Work Disappears: Manufacturing Decline and the Falling Marriage-Market Value of Men," CEPR Discussion Papers 11878, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Abe Dunn & Mahsa Gholizadeh, 2025. "The Geography of Consumption and Local Economic Shocks: The Case of the Great Recession," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 206-244, April.
    12. Gianluca Orsatti & François Perruchas & Davide Consoli & Francesco Quatraro, 2020. "Public Procurement, Local Labor Markets and Green Technological Change. Evidence from US Commuting Zones," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 75(4), pages 711-739, April.
    13. David Card & Jesse Rothstein & Moises Yi, 2025. "Location, Location, Location," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 297-336, January.
    14. Ferrara, Federico, 2023. "Why does import competition favor republicans? Localized trade shocks and cultural backlash in the US," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 111961, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Marcelo Castillo & Diane Charlton, 2023. "Housing booms and H‐2A agricultural guest worker employment," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(2), pages 709-731, March.
    16. Kim, Jun Sung & Lee, Jongkwan, 2019. "The role of intergenerational mobility in internal migration," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 1-15.
    17. Daron Acemoglu & David Autor & Jonathon Hazell & Pascual Restrepo, 2020. "AI and Jobs: Evidence from Online Vacancies," NBER Working Papers 28257, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Pao-Li CHANG & Ryo MAKIOKA & Bo Lin NG & Zhenlin YANG, 2023. "Estimating Firm-level Production Functions with Spatial Dependence in Output, Input, and Productivity," Discussion papers 23016, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    19. Michael Amior & Alan Manning, 2018. "The Persistence of Local Joblessness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(7), pages 1942-1970, July.
    20. Baragwanath, Kathryn & Goldblatt, Ran & Hanson, Gordon & Khandelwal, Amit K., 2021. "Detecting urban markets with satellite imagery: An application to India," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:33:y:2001:i:3:p:419-430. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.