Migration Across Metro-Nonmetro Boundaries and Hourly Wages☆

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.

Automated summary

Previous research has found that individuals who move from nonmetro to metro areas tend to earn higher wages. However, it is still unclear whether this metro wage advantage remains in the contemporary era, and how migration influences young adults from metro areas. This study uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 97 and multilevel/mixed-effects models to examine these questions. The findings show that regardless of migration status, young adults who work in metro areas earn higher wages compared to those in nonmetro areas, confirming the existence of a metro wage advantage. This suggests a potential rural brain drain, as individuals who leave nonmetro areas also tend to earn higher wages than if they had stayed.