I wonder how much of this (or anything related to inequality getting worse) is also a proxy of the "new permutations" of families that were "created" over the last couple of decades (sorry for the poor terminology. I'm not sure how best to describe the concept).
If for a while the norm was a single low skill working parent with someone staying at home to take care of a large families, then that's what you'll need to live in a high demand area. If you have zero working parent, or a larger family, then you're a few steps away from that.
However if we introduce a few more possible optimizations:
- 2 working parents.
- No family (as in, no kids)
- College education.
And so on, and you make those things very common (common enough to affect local economies), then the people who don't have those things are even further from the norm. DINKs with significant educations are miles ahead from more "traditional" families as far as economic situation go, and they're becoming more and more common, but back then they were nearly unheard of. Fill a city with DINKs, and everyone else is screwed.
I don't think it's that simple, the work force participation rate today is about the same that it was in 1980 (abet there has been population growth since then).
If for a while the norm was a single low skill working parent with someone staying at home to take care of a large families, then that's what you'll need to live in a high demand area. If you have zero working parent, or a larger family, then you're a few steps away from that.
However if we introduce a few more possible optimizations: - 2 working parents. - No family (as in, no kids) - College education.
And so on, and you make those things very common (common enough to affect local economies), then the people who don't have those things are even further from the norm. DINKs with significant educations are miles ahead from more "traditional" families as far as economic situation go, and they're becoming more and more common, but back then they were nearly unheard of. Fill a city with DINKs, and everyone else is screwed.