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Testing and Extending the Escalator Hypothesis: Does the Pattern of Post-migration Income Gains in Toronto Suggest Productivity and/or Learning Effects?

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  • K. Bruce Newbold
  • W. Mark Brown

Abstract

Workers earn incomes that are significantly higher in large metropolitan areas as compared with other locations in the urban hierarchy, reflecting both agglomeration economies and variation in the composition of skills and abilities across space. What benefits accrue to in-migrants to large urban areas? Fielding’s concept of the escalator region provides one way to evaluate the role of large metropolitan areas vis-à -vis the labour market, occupational mobility and migration. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether young adult migrants to Toronto aged 20–29 receive income benefits that are higher than those associated with other migrants or stayers. Results indicate that Toronto in-migrants receive an income benefit consistent with a productivity effect that is greater than the income benefit received by migrants elsewhere in the system or those who did not migrate. However, it does not appear that migration leads to an acceleration in income gains.

Suggested Citation

  • K. Bruce Newbold & W. Mark Brown, 2012. "Testing and Extending the Escalator Hypothesis: Does the Pattern of Post-migration Income Gains in Toronto Suggest Productivity and/or Learning Effects?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(15), pages 3447-3465, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:49:y:2012:i:15:p:3447-3465
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098012443859
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    2. Sanne Velthuis & Paul Sissons & Nigel Berkeley, 2019. "Do low-paid workers benefit from the urban escalator? Evidence from British cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(8), pages 1664-1680, June.
    3. Ian Gordon & Tony Champion & Mike Coombes, 2015. "Urban Escalators and Interregional Elevators: The Difference that Location, Mobility, and Sectoral Specialisation Make to Occupational Progression," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(3), pages 588-606, March.
    4. Champion, Tony & Coombes, Mike & Gordon, Ian R., 2013. "How far do England’s second-order cities emulate London as human-capital ‘escalators’?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 58447, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Cardoso, Rodrigo V. & Meijers, Evert J. & van Ham, Maarten & Burger, Martijn J. & de Vos, Duco, 2017. "The City as a Self-Help Book: The Psychology of Urban Promises," IZA Discussion Papers 10693, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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