City Size, Family Migration, and Gender Wage Gap: Evidence from Rural-Urban Migrants in China

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Finding suitable employment in a city is more challenging for married than unmarried migrants. This paper provides empirical evidence that the denser and more diversified labor markets in large cities help alleviate the colocation problem of married couples. Using data from China, we show that the gender wage gap among married migrants is significantly smaller in larger cities, and this is mainly because large cities have higher employer and population densities. Large cities make married women more likely to be employed and to secure suitable jobs after family migration. We find no evidence for alternative explanations for the correlation between city size and married women's relative wages.

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• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 15549

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials ; Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity ; Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics ; Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
• Subject: city size ; family migration ; colocation choice ; gender gap

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Xing, Chunbing ; Yuan, Xiaoyan ; Zhang, Junfu
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2022

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/265770