Danish School of Education

We analyze couples’ joint decisions about emigration and labor force participation using survey data on Danish emigrants, combined with full population administrative data. Couples are most likely to emigrate if
the male partner or both partners hold a college degree and least likely to emigrate if neither of the partners is college educated. Probability that a dual-earner couple emigrates increases with the primary earner’s income. In most couples, both partners work before emigration, while after migrating outside the Nordic countries almost half of the women stay at home. Survey responses reveal that men mainly migrate for work reasons and women for family reasons. Our findings suggest that the dual-earner model may not be strongly ingrained among emigrating couples. Instead, female labor force participation abroad varies widely between different destinations.