Previous scholars have demonstrated that nonmetro residents who move to metro areas earn higher wages. It remains an open question whether this metro wage advantage persists in the contemporary era, and how migrating influences young adults from metro areas. Migrants may earn higher wages due to higher education. Alternatively, they may earn lower wages because they lack social capital. They may experience different associations of migration and wages when growing up in nonmetro versus metro areas due to different family backgrounds, education, and community contexts. This article uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 97 and multilevel/mixed-effects models to test these competing predictions. The findings show that young adults earned higher wages if they worked in metro rather than in nonmetro areas, regardless of migration, confirming a metro wage advantage. People who left nonmetro areas earned higher wages than if they stayed, consistent with a “rural brain drain.” In addition, people earned similar wages if they stayed in, returned, and moved from metro to nonmetro areas, even though migrants and returnees had higher average education. The non-significant wage differences may be due to the less diverse wage structure in nonmetro labor markets and in-migrants' lack of social capital.

中文翻译：

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跨地铁-非地铁边界的迁移和小时工资☆

之前的学者已经证明，搬到都市区的非都市区居民的工资更高。这种都市工资优势在当代是否持续存在，以及移民如何影响都市地区的年轻人，仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。移民可能因受过高等教育而获得更高的工资。或者，他们可能因为缺乏社会资本而赚取较低的工资。由于不同的家庭背景、教育和社区背景，他们在非都市区和都市区长大时可能会经历不同的移民和工资关联。本文使用来自 97 年全国青年纵向研究的数据和多级/混合效应模型来检验这些相互竞争的预测。调查结果显示，无论是否迁移，年轻人如果在都市圈工作，都会比在非都市圈工作获得更高的工资，这证实了都市圈的工资优势。离开非都市区的人比留下来的人获得更高的工资，这与“农村人才外流”相符。此外，即使移民和海归的平均教育程度较高，如果人们留在、返回以及从都市区搬到非都市区，他们的工资也相似。工资差异不显着的原因可能是非都市劳动力市场和移民的工资结构不太多样化。缺乏社会资本。