Search Results

Title: Migration Across Metro-Nonmetro Boundaries and Hourly Wages
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Li, Xiao
MacLean, Alair
Migration Across Metro-Nonmetro Boundaries and Hourly Wages
Rural Sociology published online (14 July 2023).
Also: https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.12508
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: Rural Sociological Society
Keyword(s): Higher Education; Metro; Metro areas; Migration; Modeling, Mixed Effects; Modeling, Multilevel; Nonmetro; Nonmetro Areas; Rural Areas; Rural/Urban Differences; Rural/Urban Migration; Social Capital; Wage Models; Wage Theory; Wages; Younger Adult Worker Study

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Previous scholars have demonstrated that nonmetro residents who move to metro areas earn higher wages. It remains an open question whether this metro wage advantage persists in the contemporary era, and how migrating influences young adults from metro areas. Migrants may earn higher wages due to higher education. Alternatively, they may earn lower wages because they lack social capital. They may experience different associations of migration and wages when growing up in nonmetro versus metro areas due to different family backgrounds, education, and community contexts. This article uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 97 and multilevel/mixed-effects models to test these competing predictions. The findings show that young adults earned higher wages if they worked in metro rather than in nonmetro areas, regardless of migration, confirming a metro wage advantage. People who left nonmetro areas earned higher wages than if they stayed, consistent with a "rural brain drain." In addition, people earned similar wages if they stayed in, returned, and moved from metro to nonmetro areas, even though migrants and returnees had higher average education. The non-significant wage differences may be due to the less diverse wage structure in nonmetro labor markets and in-migrants' lack of social capital.
Bibliography Citation
Li, Xiao and Alair MacLean. "Migration Across Metro-Nonmetro Boundaries and Hourly Wages." Rural Sociology published online (14 July 2023).