Work

Selection and Economic Gains in the Great Migration of African Americans: New Evidence from Linked Census Data

Year: 2013

Type: report

Abstract: The onset of World War I spurred the "Great Migration" of African Americans from the U.S. South, arguably the most important internal migration in U.S. history.We create a new panel dataset of more than 5,000 men matched from the 1910 to 1930 census manuscripts to address three interconnected questions: To what extent was there selection into migration?How large were the migrants' gains?Did migration narrow the racial gap in economic status?We find evidence of positive selection, but the migrants' gains were large.A substantial amount of black-white convergence in this period is attributable to migration.

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research

DOI: 10.3386/w19124

Authors: William Collins, Marianne Wanamaker

Institutions: Northwestern University, National Bureau of Economic Research, Vanderbilt University, University of Chicago, University of Tennessee at Knoxville

Language: English

Topic: Historical Economic and Social Studies

Subfield: Economics and Econometrics

Field: Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Science Foundation, Vanderbilt University