Urbanization and Inequality: The Geography of Wage Disparities

该奖项是作为NSF社会、行为和经济学博士后研究奖学金(SPRF)计划的一部分提供的。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学职业生涯培养有前途的、早期职业博士水平的科学家。SPRF奖项包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行两年的培训，并鼓励博士后研究员进行独立研究。国家科学基金会致力于促进科学界所有阶层的科学家参与其研究方案和活动，包括那些来自代表性不足的群体的科学家；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的专业发展的一个重要水平。每个博士后研究员都必须解决推动各自学科领域向前发展的重要科学问题。在加州大学洛杉矶分校Michael Storper博士的赞助下，这一博士后奖学金奖项支持一位研究城市化对美国城市收入不平等影响的早期职业科学家。在更大、更密集的城市地区，工人平均有更高的工资和工资收入，这种现象被称为“城市工资溢价”。然而，对于不同群体的工人来说，城市工资溢价似乎存在很大差异。最近的研究表明，城市工资溢价存在人口统计因素，在美国各城市的城市化水平和工资差距之间产生了正的横截面关系。本研究将运用相关学术文献中较新的方法和数据来源，进一步探讨城镇工资溢价中的这些差异。这项工作将帮助我们理解城市规划者和政策制定者如何促进城市经济的公平和包容。更具体地说，拟议的研究将提出以下问题：1)随着时间的推移，城市地区内人口密度和人口的增加是否会导致工资不平等的加剧；2)城市化的这些不同影响背后的机制是什么？第一个问题将通过面板回归模型进行探索，该模型使用了来自全国青年纵向调查的大量城市地区的个体工人数据。第二个问题将通过半结构化访谈和带注释的地图绘制练习进行，对象是居住在加州一个大城市地区和一个小得多的城市地区的工人(特别是住过大洛杉矶或旧金山以及大弗雷斯诺或萨克拉门托的人)。将被检验的一个核心假设是，更多的城市化城市地区是否会增加人们在驾驭就业机会、住房/社区质量、通勤时间和日常活动方面面临的挑战，从而对工人产生不成比例的不利工资影响。这项研究将有助于我们理解为什么美国最繁荣的城市地区也往往是最不平等的地区之一，因为一个新的框架整合了空间和劳动力市场因素作为不平等的驱动因素。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Michael Storper at the University of California, Los Angeles, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating the impact of urbanization on income inequality across U.S. cities. In larger and denser urban areas workers on average have higher wage and salary incomes, a phenomenon known as the “urban wage premium.” Yet the urban wage premium appears to vary substantially for workers in different groups. Recent research suggests there are demographic dimensions to the urban wage premium, generating a positive cross-sectional relationship between levels of urbanization across U.S. cities and wage gaps. This research will probe these disparities in the urban wage premium further, with methods and data sources that are new to the related scholarly literature. This work will inform our understanding of how urban planners and policymakers can promote equity and inclusion in urban economies.More specifically, the proposed research will ask 1) do increases in density and population within city-regions over time cause wage inequality to increase and 2) what mechanisms underlie these disparate impacts of urbanization? The first question will be explored with panel regression models using data on individual workers across a broad number of city-regions from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The second question will be examined with semi-structured interviews and annotated mapping exercises with workers who have lived in one large and one much smaller California city-region (specifically people who have lived in either greater Los Angeles or San Francisco and either greater Fresno or Sacramento). A core hypothesis that will be tested is whether more urbanized city-regions increase the challenges people face in navigating employment opportunities, housing/neighborhood quality, commute times, and daily activities in ways that have disproportionately adverse wage effects for workers. This research will contribute to our understanding of why the most prosperous U.S. city-regions also tend to be among the most unequal with a novel framework that integrates spatial and labor market considerations as drivers of inequality.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.