Zubin Jelveh reports:
If you’re a married woman living in the New York City area, there’s
a better than 50 percent chance that you don’t work, according to a recent analysis of Census data by economists affiliated with the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank.More specifically, only 49 percent of white high school-educated
married women in their prime working ages were holding down jobs in the
New York area as of the 2000 Census. To put that in perspective, there
are roughly 2 million woman over 15-years-old who are married in the
New York area.The national average for this particular demographic is 67 percent.
At the other end of the spectrum is Minneapolis where almost 80 percent
of these married women are employed — that’s larger than the
percentage of working men aged 25 and older in the U.S.
And why is this?
Surprisingly, the economists argue, the most important specific thing seems to be traffic.
And if you do work in these traffic-heavy areas, you are likely to work more hours. But is it all causal?
With all due respect to The Walker Art Center, if I wanted to be a kept woman I would not start my quest in Minneapolis. High density, as you find in Manhattan, means lots of fun things to do in your copious free time as a kept woman and also a higher degree of income inequality and thus the hope of snaring a rich man. There’s a reason why they didn’t set Sex in the City in Paramus and most of the women there will be working even when the traffic gets worse.
Why do you assume that these are all “kept women” with “copious free time” and not just stay-at-home moms?
Jacqueline, you think more women in New York than in Minneapolis want to spend all day long staying home with the kids? Not a chance.
Jacqueline: from Jelveh’s blog post -
@holmegm
Worldwide and historically speaking, the ability to have an able adult member of the family refrain from marketable work has been a status symbol reserved for the upper middle class.
Nice conclusion.
Minneapolis has the most working married women. New York has the least. New York is fun. That means Minneapolis sucks.
You’re better than that.
> The women I meet that are having children move out of Minneapolis and into Saint Paul or other suburbs
Ooh, a subtle slight for St. Paul…now it’s just another suburb.
The paper barely mentions taxes. Since the rate of non-employment among married women seems to be correlated with the cost of living (or at least of housing) in a city, I would propose the hypothesis that the “marriage penalty” is responsible. The high marginal rate associated with the incomes required to afford life in these locations renders it hardly worthwhile to pay taxes on a menial employment, and the nature of the federal income tax brackets is disincentive for substantial employment when one earner is sufficient for thriving at the location.
Indeed most of the married women I know who live in expensive locations do in fact engage in activities which are untaxed or unreported. While this is strictly anecdotal, it does seem to me that this differs from less expensive locations.
As a first year resident of Minneapolis what has struck me is how different the Norwegian psyche and culture is from other places I have lived. This statistic wasn’t very surprising. I wonder what Rawls idea of fairness would have been had he grown up in a Norwegian home. Tyler, have you ever been to Norway?
As an aside, I would be curious to see the thesis of the study tested more thoroughly. With the I-35W Bridge collapse commutes for certain parts of the city became a lot worse. Its a natural experiment of sorts, though a tragic one. If what they say is true some sort of effect should be able to be seen right?
lived in Twin Cities (St. Paul) for 8 years in the 90s. great place to raise children – and yes we went to Minneapolis regularly (Children’s Theatre Company (we saw a great Cinderella panto twice at Christmas and the kids liked the regular shows), Guthrie, Walker, some restaurants, and UofM). now that kids are older I like DC area and being close enough to NYC for quick visits. (See “Chinese food near LaGuardia, NYC“)
Manhattan is not synonymous with the “New York City area”. There are vast discrepancies in income and wealth between the two, especially if the question is the phenomenon of the “kept woman”, by which I assume is meant a woman whose primary activities entail planning fundraisers and social events; in other words, a socialite.
Very few socialites live in New York City’s suburbs, probably due to network effects: all the other very wealthy people with whom they deal live in New York City (by which is meant: Manhattan below 125th St.), (or Beverly Hills or Palm Beach or Jupiter Island, etc., etc.)
So it’s not clear to me what people are talking about when they refer to the “New York City area”: are they referring to Manhattan below 125th St? Or are they referring to all of New York City and its surrounding areas? The average income over the latter area is likely smaller than the average income of the nation as a whole. The average income over the former area is likely significantly higher than the average income of the nation as a whole.
What, so now only white women count as women?
NYC has lots of high paying jobs and inherited wealth, so more wives can afford to stay home, MSP not so much. Also the culture is very egalitarian/anti-sexist in MSP relatively speaking.
Dave: are they referring to Manhattan below 125th St? Or are they referring to all of New York City and its surrounding areas? The average income over the latter area is likely smaller than the average income of the nation as a whole. The average income over the former area is likely significantly higher than the average income of the nation as a whole.
The data refers to the NYC MSA – which is defined here. It includes not just the five boroughs but the surrounding suburban areas, which are quite wealthy. Here’s a list of top counties by income in the United States – note how most of the counties in the NYC MSA are quite high on the list.
My instinctive response was the same as Bloix (except Bloix actually looked at some data) — it seems like working with just white women and then comparing different areas with significantly different racial compositions is a sort of bait-and-switch. How many of the married white women of Johannesburg, circa 1980, worked?
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