Full Citation
Title: Selection and Economic Gains in the Great Migration of African Americans: New Evidence from Linked Census Data
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2011
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Abstract: We assemble a new dataset that links census records for more than 5,000 African American males from 1910 to 1930, the first two decades of the Great Migration from the South. We use the new dataset to engage major themes in research on the Great Migration. We find that literacy in 1910 is weakly correlated with subsequent inter-regional migration, but distance to major northern cities is a strong predictor even when controlling for personal and local characteristics. New estimates of race- and region-specific earnings indicate that the migrants nominal and real gains were large on average, even among men from the same county or same household. There is some evidence consistent with positive selection into migration, but this can account for a small portion of the earnings difference between migrants and non-migrants.
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Authors: Collins, William J.; Wannamaker, Marianne H.
Publisher: Economic History Association
Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS
Topics: Migration and Immigration, Race and Ethnicity
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