Research

2024

1. wp available

   Following Along: The Gender Gap in Returns to Geographic Mobility

   (previously "Households, gender and agglomeration economies")

   Mylène Feuillade

   2024

   Presented at: Doctorissimes, 2025; EAYE, 2024; AFEPOP, 2024; ADRES Job Market Conference, 2024; RGS Doctoral Conference, 2024; PSE Labor Chair Seminar, 2024; Naples School of Economics PhD workshop, 2023; Sciences Po Seminar, 2024-2023-2022-2021

   Abs PDF

   This paper examines how household location decisions differentially affect labor market outcomes across gender and partnership status using French administrative data. Implementing a staggered difference-in-difference design, I find that only partnered women experience income losses following moves, with earnings declining by approximately 7% in the two years post-relocation. Analysis of within-household dynamics reveals that moves typically reduce total household income and disproportionately benefit men’s careers –even in couples where women were the primary earners pre-move. These findings are not consistent with income-maximizing models of household decision-making that predict prioritization of the higher earner’s career. Instead, the results suggest that gender norms play a crucial role in household location choices, with men’s career opportunities systematically prioritized over women’s, regardless of their relative economic contributions.

2. slides available

   Gender, households, children, and the city

   (previously "Households, gender and agglomeration economies")

   Mylène Feuillade

   2024

   Presented at: EAYE, 2024; AFEPOP, 2024; ADRES Job Market Conference, 2024; RGS Doctoral Conference, 2024; PSE Labor Chair Seminar, 2024; Naples School of Economics PhD workshop, 2023; Sciences Po Seminar, 2024-2023-2022-2021

   Abs

   TThis paper studies the gender gap in the urban wage premium and its heterogeneity by couple and parental status. Using administrative data on the universe of French residents, I find that the urban wage premium is 50% larger for women than men once spatial sorting is accounted for. Contrary to expectations, this gender gap is not driven by partnered women or mothers benefiting more from density. Instead, mothers of young children experience a density penalty that nearly eliminates their additional agglomeration gains, suggesting a large role of congestion cost. I also find a positive effect of density on labor market participation that is stronger for women than men after controlling for sorting, and is not related to household structure.

3. in progress

   Real income inequality and within- and between-city sorting

   Pierre-Philippe Combes, Mylène Feuillade, Laurent Gobillon, and 2 more authors

   2024
4. slides available

   The rise in work from home and spousal labor supply

   Mylène Feuillade, Dominique Goux, and Eric Maurin

   2024

   Presented at: PSE Labor Chair Seminar, 2025