Location Choice in Early Adulthood: Millennials versus Baby Boomers

Abstract

This paper contributes to the literature on the effect of individual-level characteristics on urban location choice by examining whether young people aged 25-34 with a bachelor's degree or higher are more likely to live in central cities in 2011 than in 1990. When I control for individual-level characteristics I find that the effect of education on the probability of living in a central city remains similar across generations. This is evidence that to the extent education plays a role in the larger population of high human-capital 25-34 year olds in cities in 2011 it is due to a composition effect rather than cities becoming more attractive to educated people at the margin.

Keywords: Location, Education, Regional Population

JEL Classification: D19, I20, R20, R23