Work Relocations Aggravate the Gender Pay Gap
A study considers earnings implications for hetero couples in Germany and Sweden.
- By
- November 10, 2025
- CBR - Gender Gap
Two-income male-female couples don’t necessarily put a premium on maximizing combined earnings when relocating for work-related reasons. In most cases, the man’s career comes first.
Those are the findings in a study of household decision-making in Germany and Sweden conducted by a research team including Chicago Booth’s Matthew Notowidigdo and Heather Sarsons. Moves by married couples tended to benefit the men more than the women, according to the paper.
In the past 50 years, dual-income households have become common, and so has a gender disparity in earnings after a relocation for work. The researchers wondered how much of that postmove pay gap was due not to men’s generally higher earnings but a so-called “co-location problem.” Did choosing a location to advance one spouse’s career limit opportunities for the other?
The researchers tapped into administrative data in the two countries to analyze moves from one commuting zone to another by couples between 25 and 45 years old. The Swedish data covered moves from 2002 to 2007, while the German information covered 2001–11.
In the first five years after a relocation, in Germany, men’s earnings increased 11 percent but women’s rose 3 percent. In the five years after a relocation in Sweden, meanwhile, men’s earnings rose 5 percent while women’s dropped 1 percent. This divergence continued over the first decade after the move: men’s earnings increased by about 17 percent in Germany and 11 percent in Sweden, while women saw a more modest increase of 10 percent in Germany and 7 percent in Sweden. The gender earnings gap came in part from the fact that women in both countries were more likely to leave the labor force after moving, find the researchers, who add that the gap was greatest for couples aged 20–29 at the time of the move.
When moving benefits one partner more
On the basis of their analysis, the researchers developed a model of household decision-making in which couples put more weight on the income earned by the man than that of the woman. They tested the model using a subset of couples in which the man and the woman had similar earning potential. In both countries, they find that the model accurately predicted the choice of whether to move.
The researchers also investigated whether hetero couples were more likely to relocate when the man lost his job compared with the woman being idled. In both countries, the likelihood of moving doubled when the man faced a job loss, underscoring a gender norm prioritizing men’s career progress, the paper finds.
“The only way to make sense of that result is to conclude the couple cares more about the income earned by the man than the woman,” Notowidigdo says.
The findings may help explain why women face larger income drops after losing a job than men do, Notowidigdo and his collaborators write, arguing that married women often struggle to seize career opportunities in different locations.
The research also challenges the notion that women’s income reductions are solely a result of preferences related to raising children. Many studies have suggested that such challenges, often labeled “child penalties,” may contribute to the gender pay gap because women tend to take on more caregiving responsibilities than men and as a result face disadvantages when jobs reward long hours or specific working times.
Another explanation emerges from the research: married women may be less likely to make and benefit from long-distance career moves, even experiencing income reductions as a result. This could be because they are “tied movers,” benefiting less from relocating when decisions are made jointly with a husband compared with moving individually. The hit women take to income “is not only about child-rearing,” Notowidigdo says.
The paper suggests that just as the societal norm favoring men's career growth can explain the gender pay gap after a couple has a child, it's also the reason for the gap after a couple moves. This same norm also makes it more likely that a couple will relocate after a man is laid off compared with a woman, the researchers argue. They say households might be missing out on opportunities to maximize income because they act as if a woman’s income is worth less than a man’s.
Seema Jayachandran, Lea Nassal, Matthew Notowidigdo, Marie Paul, Heather Sarsons, and Elin Sundberg, “Moving to Opportunity, Together,” Working paper, December 2024.
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