Women out-earning men in US hub cities

Young women in their 20s and 30s in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Boston, Chicago and Minneapolis make more than young men. In New York, they earn 117% of men, in Dallas 120%. Women in these age categories nation wide only make 89% the wages of their male counterparts.

This is according to Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer from Queen's College (As reported in the New York Times). And posted today by Kevin Stolarick at the Creativity Exchange in a short review.

Assuming that the statistical sample is large enough for these results to be meaningful, that's a really interesting study for several reasons:

First, it shows how you can't paint the entire USA with one brush.

Second, it reflects how different certain large "hub cities" are becoming from the rest of the nation (and not just in the USA, think Canada, England, etc.) in terms of opportunity, demographics, etc.

Third, I wonder if large hub cities have different pulls for men and women, depending upon their education. Here's my theory:

Educated women see hub cities as a land of opportunity -- full of interesting career possibilities and a large, diverse population that is generally open minded toward women succeeding (as well as gays, immigrants, etc. succeeding). They feel they'll be judged for their brains in a hub city.

Educated men can find great opportunity in any city. In fact, they might do better in a smaller city with significant gender biases. So there is no reason for them to move to New York or LA or Dallas.

Men with less education who are also drawn toward places like New York and Los Angeles may be "impatient" and "eager" to strike out on their own, not wanting to spend time earning a degree. They want life in the fast lane -- now --and go looking
for it in hub cities. Women with less education may be more inclined to head toward a regional city closer to home.

So the result is we have less-educated men heading for hub cities along with more educated women.

There also may be some interesting further evidence on how hub cities function in a national economy.