ST. LOUIS, March 9 (UPI) -- Economists at Washington University in St. Louis say couples are more likely to move to a big city for employment if the husband is a college graduate.
The economists found even if a married woman had a college degree, relocation still depended heavily on whether her husband was a college graduate.
"We are becoming more used to the idea of husbands as trailing spouses from newspaper and magazine articles. We all know couples who have moved for the wife's career," said study co-author Janice Compton, a doctoral candidate in economics in Arts & Sciences. "But our data show that migration is still overwhelmingly affected by the husband's and not the wife's education. That is, if he has a college degree they are more likely to move, and to move to the big city, regardless of her education."
Compton said the findings could mean disparities in professional salaries are likely to continue.
"The continued presence of trailing wives means that we should continue to see a wage gap between married women and married men, even among those with college degrees," Compton said.
