Full Citation
Title: Drought and Migration during the Great Depression
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2021
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Abstract: Little is known about America’s worst drought outside of the area known as the Dust Bowl. I create a new dataset of county-level migration, drought, and Depression severity to study the impact of drought with an emphasis on migration. I find that the drought influenced county-level in and out-migration especially during and after 1934, which was the worst drought year in the last millennium. Counties that suffered extreme drought in 1934 witnessed an 8.1 percentage point decline in population (from 1930 to 1935) compared to non-drought counties within the same state. Net population declines related to drought continued through the late 1930s. These results contribute to our understanding of what circumstances lead to mass environmental migration.
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Authors: Sichko, Christopher
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Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS
Topics: Migration and Immigration, Natural Resource Management
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