Karen King

Power couples, defined as pairs of highly educated partners, tend to cluster in cities to take advantage of more developed labor markets, better jobs, and higher wages. This research examines to what extent being a partner in a power couple brings additional wage income benefits. We examine what the effects of power couple partnering is on wage income. Furthermore, we examine how the results are affected by gender and place of residence. To determine this, the research uses detailed Swedish micro data on power couples 23–39 years of age over the period 2007–2016. Our analysis finds positive and significant results from being in a power couple on wage income after controlling for individual, workplace, and geographical characteristics. This is the case for both men and women in power couple households without children, but for women only when children are present. For power couples in denser urban areas, we find a positive effect for men in power couples with or without children. We suggest this effect is due to a more equal “balance of power” between partners in highly educated power couples located in bigger cities, where norms and values may favor a relatively greater sharing of household duties between men and women, and where men face a different competitive situation in the labor market.

The decline in fertility across advanced nations is a well‐known fact. Becker famously argued that declining rates of childbirth were the by‐product of higher levels of economic development and human capital. Recently, it has been suggested that two additional factors might lead to declining rates of childbirth—the higher housing costs of expensive cities and the change in the nature of work and employment from more regular and secure full‐time work to less secure arrangements, like self‐employment. Our research examines the effect of these two classes of factors—housing costs and self‐employment—on fertility, in regard to both the rate of childbirth and the delay in the age at which people have children. We use detailed panel data covering all Swedish individuals in their prime childbearing years (20–45) for the 10‐year period 2007–2016. Our findings indicate that the likelihood of having a child is affected negatively by increased housing costs and positively by self‐employment. Both result in a delay in the parental age at which children are born. Of the two, self‐employment has a relatively large effect.

Previous research has identified the clustering of high-tech industries, entrepreneurial start-ups, and venture capital across metropolitan areas. Using detailed ZIP code data on start-up activity and venture capital investment, this research tests three hypotheses informed by urban theory on the clustering of innovation, entrepreneurship, and high-technology industry: (1) that start-up activity and venture capital investment will concentrate in distinct microclusters within metro areas, (2) that a substantial level of start-up activity and venture capital investment will cluster in dense urban neighborhoods or ZIP codes, and (3) that the clustering of start-ups and venture capital investment will vary by industry or type of technology. The authors find evidence to support all three. Start-up activity and venture capital investment are concentrated in a relatively small number of ZIP codes in the United States, the majority of which are in dense urban neighborhoods, and this clustering varies by industry and type of technology.

Second Promised Land: Migration to Alberta and the Transformation of Canadian Society

Combining the 1993, 1996, and 1999 six-year panels of the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics Master Files, the purpose of the paper is twofold. First, it examines the migration and distribution patterns of the foreign-born across Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs). Second, it examines how internal migration modeling results may differ when pre- and post-migration measures are used. Results suggest that internal migration of the foreign-born generally does not increase their dispersion across Canada, with the foreign-born primarily choosing one of the three immigrant gateway cities of Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, or moving to other relatively large CMAs.