Accounting for big-city growth in low-paid occupations: immigration and/or service-class consumption

Gordon, Ian R. and Kaplanis, Ioannis (2014) Accounting for big-city growth in low-paid occupations: immigration and/or service-class consumption. Economic Geography, 90 (1). pp. 67-90. ISSN 0013-0095

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Abstract

The growth of “global cities” in the 1980s was supposed to have involved an occupational polarization, including the increase in low-paid service jobs. Although held to be untrue for European cities at the time, some such growth did emerge in London a decade later than first reported for New York. The question is whether there was simply a delay before London conformed to the global city model or whether another distinct cause was at work in both cases. This article proposes that the critical factor in both cases was actually an upsurge of immigration from poor countries that provided an elastic supply of cheap labor. This hypothesis and its counterpart based on the growth in elite jobs are tested econometrically for the British case with regional data spanning 1975–2008, finding some support for both effects, but with immigration from poor countries as the crucial influence in late 1990s London.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/%28...
Additional Information:	© 2013 Clark University
Divisions:	Geography & Environment Spatial Economics Research Centre
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GF Human ecology. Anthropogeography H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races J Political Science > JV Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration
Date Deposited:	18 Feb 2014 14:55
Last Modified:	06 Jan 2024 22:18
Funders:	Economic and Social Research Council, Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, Welsh Assembly Government
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/55716

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