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Title: Relative Deprivation and Internal Migration in the United States: A Comparison of Black and White Men

Citation Type: Conference Paper

Publication Year: 2012

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Abstract: While the link between geographic and social mobility has long been a cornerstone of sociological approaches to migration, recent research has cast doubt on the economic returns to internal U.S. migration. Moreover, there are important racial disparities in prevailing population movements, with blacks significantly more likely than whites to engage in southern migration, that remain poorlyunderstood. This paper, which draws on data from the 2000 census, reappraises the link between migration and social mobility by taking relative deprivation into consideration. We examine the association between migration, disaggregated according to region of origin and destination, and absoluteand relative measures of earnings and occupational prestige, separately by race. Our findings lend newinsight into the theoretical and stratification implications of growing racial disparities in southernmigration patterns; we show that while both blacks and whites who move from north to south generallyaverage lower absolute incomes than their sedentary northern peers, they enjoy significantly higherrelative social position. Moreover, the relative gains to migration are substantially larger for blacks than for whites. The opposite patterns obtain for south-north migration.

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Authors: Flippen, Chenoa

Conference Name: Population Association of America

Publisher Location: San Francisco, CA

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Migration and Immigration, Other, Race and Ethnicity

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