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The Geography of Jobs: Gender Gaps in Mobility and Opportunity

Project description

Labour mobility shapes gender inequalities in regional economies

Migration is a key element that affects local labour markets, making jobs more accessible and available through improving mobility and increasing occupation choice options. This is because the access to jobs that differ in terms of mobility is not equal between genders and tends to accentuate gender inequalities among couples. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the GeMO project will explore how the geographic distribution of jobs shapes gender differences in internal migration and, by extension, affects gender gaps in earnings and regional inequality. The project will use reduced-form econometric methods, theoretical models of household migration and extensive survey and administrative data.

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.

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HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF

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Coordinator

UNIVERSITAET MANNHEIM
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 202 125,12
Address
SCHLOSS
68161 Mannheim
Germany

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Region
Baden-Württemberg Karlsruhe Mannheim, Stadtkreis
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

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