Full Citation
Title: The Impact of College Education on Geographic Mobility: Evidence from the Vietnam Generation
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2007
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Abstract: College-educated workers are more likely than others to make lasting, long-distance moves, but little is known about the role of college itself in determining geographic mobility. Unobservable characteristics related to selection into college might also drive the relationship between college education and geographic mobility. Using the 5% sample from the 1980 U.S. Census, we provide instrumental variables estimates of the impact of college education on the probability of a long-distance move. We use cohort-level and state-level variation in college attendance and completion arising from draft avoidance behavior among men at risk for conscription into the Armed Forces during the Vietnam conflict to identify the causal effect of college. We find that college completion and some college attendance both significantly increase the probability of a long-distance move. Our preferred estimates imply that graduation increases the probability that a man resides outside his birth state by approximately 15 percentage points. Moreover, using individual data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) 1979, we find that over half of the mobility advantage to college graduates remains after controlling for ability, parental education, and parental mobility histories while the mobility advantage of students with some college is entirely explained by these factors. (JEL: J61, J24, I23)
Url: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.472.2134&rep=rep1&type=pdf
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Authors: Malamud, Ofer; Wozniak, Abigail
Publisher: University of Chicago
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Education, Population Mobility and Spatial Demography
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