The Geography of Jobs: Gender Gaps in Mobility and Opportunity

Objective

This project examines how the geographic distribution of jobs shapes gender differences in internal migration and their consequences for regional inequality and gender gaps in earnings. Migration is a key adjustment mechanism in local labor markets, yet mobility opportunities are unevenly distributed: men and women sort differently into occupations with distinct degrees of geographic portability. In couples, both partners’ occupational constraints interact, often limiting women’s career prospects and reinforcing persistent gender gaps. The project has three objectives: (1) to estimate the causal effect of job geography on migration decisions by gender; (2) to quantify how changes in occupational sorting by gender have contributed to the long-run decline in couple migration; and (3) to assess the broader implications for earnings gaps and regional inequalities. To achieve these goals, the project will integrate reduced-form econometric methods – combining survey and administrative data, exploiting exogenous policy changes, and performing high-dimensional wage decompositions – with theoretical modelling of household migration to decompose aggregate effects. While existing research has extensively documented gender differences in occupational choices and migration, this project explicitly links the two by introducing job geography as a novel job amenity that shapes gendered occupational sorting and has direct implications for geographic mobility and regional inequality. Beyond its scientific impact, this project will provide robust evidence to inform EU policy on geographic mobility, gender equality, and regional cohesion, aligning with priorities for inclusive growth in a context of declining mobility and persistent gender gaps.