When Work Moves: Job Suburbanization and Black Employment

Conrad Miller

doi:10.3386/w24728

When Work Moves: Job Suburbanization and Black Employment

Conrad Miller

Working Paper 24728

DOI 10.3386/w24728

Issue Date June 2018

Revision Date February 2023

This paper examines whether job suburbanization caused declines in black employment rates from 1970 to 2000. I find that black workers are less likely than white workers to work in observably similar jobs that are located further from the central city. Using evidence from establishment relocations, I find that this relationship at least in part reflects the causal effect of job location. At the local labor market level, I find that job suburbanization is associated with substantial declines in black employment rates relative to white employment rates. Evidence from nationally planned highway infrastructure corroborates a causal interpretation.

I thank David Autor, Will Dobbie, Ben Feigenberg, Amy Finkelstein, Heidi Williams, Seth Zimmerman, and seminar participants at Princeton, Chicago Harris, Ohio State, Upjohn Institute, the 2015 EALE-SOLE conference, the 2012 AEA Summer Pipeline Conference, and MIT labor lunch for comments. I thank Nathaniel Baum-Snow for providing access to highway data compiled for Baum-Snow (2007). I also thank Ron Edwards, Bliss Cartwright, and Georgianna Hawkins of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for facilitating access to the EEO-1 form data and providing helpful feedback. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
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- June 12, 2018

When Work Moves: Job Suburbanization and Black Employment

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