Volume 2, Number 4 (Fall) 1967
Gallaway, Lowell E. 1967. "Industry Variations in Geographic Labor Mobility Patterns." Journal of Human Resources 2(4):461-474.
Through the use of data derived from a one percent sample of Social Security Administration records, patterns of interregional mobility in the period 1957 to 1960 are explored for male workers by industry of major job in 1957. The data are available for ten broad industrial categories and they are used to explore the extent to which workers in different industries are responsive to the factors of distances and earnings levels when they move between the nine broad census regions. The basic conclusions are: (1) that workers respond positively to earnings and negatively to distance and (2) that the strength of the distance variable is indicative of its measuring more than just the pure costs of interregional movement. It is suggested that the latter may reflect the presence of barriers to the flow of labor market information between regions.
The author is Professor of Economics, Ohio University. The data in this paper were made available to him by the Social Security Administration in the course of his research on interindustry and geographic labor mobility for that agency. He is indebted to Mrs. Sebastia Svolos for her invaluable assistance in assembling the data and to the Ford Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania Computer Center for assistance in processing the information. All responsibility for the analysis and conclusions is the author's alone.
© 2003 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
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