Commuting, Spatial Allocations, and Inequalities

Abstract

This thesis examines the complex relationships between commuting times, wage disparities, gender differences, and urban spatial distribution, through the lens of three interconnected studies. The first chapter investigates the relationship between commuting times, wages, and the gender wage gap, with a focus on controlling for occupational choice endogeneity. Using data from the American Community Survey (ACS) and the Occupational Information Network (O*Net), the study highlights how gender differences significantly influence the positive correlation between commuting time and wages, especially among full-time working homeowners in U.S. cities. Through quantile regression analysis, it reveals that while men's returns on commuting diminish as income rises, the commuting gender gap remains relatively constant across the wage distribution. The second chapter delves deeper into the gendered impacts of commuting on wage disparities, addressing the endogeneity of commuting times. By constructing instrumental variables based on exogenous city characteristics from the 2016 ACS, the study isolates the causal effects of commuting on wages. The findings suggest that marital status drives the gender difference in commuting premiums, with married women and single men demanding higher wages to compensate for longer commutes. This chapter contributes to a broader understanding of wage-commute trade-offs and the socio-economic consequences of commuting time. The third chapter explores the interplay between job flexibility, residential location sorting, and wage determination through a monocentric city model. The model incorporates both high- and low-skilled workers and employs a bid-rent framework to determine housing prices and the spatial distribution of labour. The study finds that high-skilled workers' job flexibility significantly impacts their commuting decisions and urban spatial sorting patterns. In low-flexibility settings, high-skilled workers tend to live near the central business district, earning higher wages to offset the high cost of central real estate and commuting. Conversely, increased job flexibility enables these workers to relocate to more distant, affordable areas, thereby reducing the equilibrium skill premium. Together, these chapters provide a comprehensive analysis of how commuting, gender, and job flexibility interact to shape wage patterns and urban spatial structures in contemporary cities.