Startup Jobs In A Polarized Era: How Dobbs V. Jackson Shifted The Geography Of Remote And In-person Applications

Abstract

Firms’ access to talent depends on workers’ willingness to relocate, yet little is known about how person-region ideological misfit constrains geographic mobility. We propose that a locale’s policy choices signal its ideological orientation, creating mobility frictions for workers whose values conflict with the signaled ideology. We analyze job application behavior from Wellfound, a leading startup job platform, around the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson ruling. Applications to in-person jobs in trigger-law states fell by 8.6% relative to protected states. But applications to remote jobs, where employment is decoupled from residence, were unaffected. The decline is driven by applicants from protected states and holds for both women and men, consistent with ideology-based friction rather than material impact alone. Firms also had to offer 9.6% higher pay to sustain applicant interest following the ruling. These findings indicate that the ideology signaled by a firm’s location shapes its employment attractiveness, but strategic job design choices such as remote work and higher pay can mitigate these frictions.