Family Location Constraints and the Geographic Distribution of Female Professionals

A much smaller fraction of professional men live in two-career families than do professional women. The restriction that couples accept jobs in the same geographic location thus weighs more heavily against professional women than against professional men. A probabilistic model of the placement process is developed that predicts the geographic distribution of female professionals that would be observed in the absence of employer discrimination. This distribution is much more than proportionally concentrated in large urban markets. It is concluded that the proportional guidelines employed in the Affirmative Action program discriminate against employers located in small labor markets.