Silvia Avram
Sociological Science March 14, 2025
10.15195/v12.a8
Abstract
Women tend to commute shorter distances and earn lower wages. The theory suggests that more mobile workers are likely to command higher wages, in part because they have access to more job opportunities. We show how information on employment concentration and commuting patterns can be linked to build an index of labor market opportunities, using linked administrative and household survey data from the UK. Although labor markets are porous, commonly used measures of employment concentration require well-defined geographical boundaries. We overcome this problem by combining employment concentration indices calculated using areas of different sizes and using the individual commuting costs as weights. We show that women have higher commuting costs and, as a result, their labor markets are smaller and their job opportunities are more limited.
Women tend to commute shorter distances and earn lower wages. The theory suggests that more mobile workers are likely to command higher wages, in part because they have access to more job opportunities. We show how information on employment concentration and commuting patterns can be linked to build an index of labor market opportunities, using linked administrative and household survey data from the UK. Although labor markets are porous, commonly used measures of employment concentration require well-defined geographical boundaries. We overcome this problem by combining employment concentration indices calculated using areas of different sizes and using the individual commuting costs as weights. We show that women have higher commuting costs and, as a result, their labor markets are smaller and their job opportunities are more limited.
 | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. |
Reproducibility Package: The data used in this research include the Business Structure Database (DOI: 10.5255/UKDA-SN-6697-15); Understanding Society: Waves 1–11, 2009–2020 and Harmonised BHPS: Waves 1–18, 1991–2009: Special Licence Access, Census 2001 Lower Layer Super Output Areas ( DOI: 10.5255/UKDA-SN-6670-13); and Understanding Society: Waves 1–11, 2009–2020 and Harmonised BHPS: Waves 1–18, 1991–2009 (DOI:10.5255/UKDA-SN-6614-16). All three are available free of charge via the UK Data Service. The syntax code for reproducing results can be found at: https://osf.io/zscpf/?view_only=ccb1d3bb40c1400cacfe55382dababd3
- Citation: Avram, Silvia. 2025. “Commuting and Gender Differences in Job Opportunities” Sociological Science 12: 158-179.
- Received: December 3, 2024
- Accepted: January 20, 2025
- Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Cristobal Young
- DOI: 10.15195/v12.a8