Structural change and spatial concentration of high-income earners: evidence from French regions since 1960

This article shows that the spatial dispersion of high-income earners across French regions follows an inverted U-shape between 1960 and 2019. Dispersion declined from the early 1960s to around 2000, driven by strong regional convergence in employment structures: the fastest deindustrialization occurred in manufacturing-intensive regions, while laggard regions expanded both manufacturing and services. Since the early 2000s, dispersion has risen again as convergence in services stopped and high-skilled services increasingly clustered in large urban areas. High earners were initially over-represented in major cities and the industrial Northeast; today in major cities and Swiss-border regions.