Francesca Verga (DIW Berlin and FU Berlin)
Christian Schluter and Carsten Schröder
Job changes often require workers to relocate. However, many workers are not isolated agents but live in couples who make location decisions jointly. When relocation occurs due to a job change by the primary earner, the other partner becomes a tied mover who is likely to benefit less from the move; typically, the latter is the woman, and the tied-mover penalty then contributes to (still) persistent gender earnings and employment gaps. We find a substantial tied mover penalty in earnings for couples in Germany, who predominately move (long-distances) for reasons of work, using a dynamic event study design with a balanced comparison group to control for life-cycle confounders. The tied-mover penalty arises from being tied, since untied female movers show earnings gains that are similar to those of their male counterparts. A key driver is the increase in the male hours of work, as opposed to a wage increase. The penalty is larger for mothers of young children.