Escaping the rural pay penalty: location, migration and the labour market

Abstract

This article analyses the longitudinal effect of rural/urban migration on labour market outcomes for young people in Britain. It assesses how rural/urban origin and residential location affect career prospects, tracking earnings from youth (defined as aged under 25) into adulthood using data from British Household Panel Survey waves 1–18. Earnings in rural areas are higher overall, although young people in rural areas are paid less than urban counterparts. While earnings increase at a quicker rate for those in rural locations, being of rural origin leads to slower wage growth and respondents who ‘stay rural’ throughout the full observation period earn less than all other groups.