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Title: Competition in the Promised Land: Black Migration and Northern Labor Markets, 1940-1970
Citation Type: Working Paper
Publication Year: 2004
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Abstract: Relative black economic performance stagnated in the North after World War II, a period of otherwise significant racial convergence. This paper asks to what extent the economic disappointment of the North can be explained by on-going migration of southern blacks. The migration represented a considerable supply shock to the labor markets above the Mason-Dixon line, particularly to low-skilled labor markets in urban areas that employed many already resident black workers. I use variation in migrant flows between cities to evaluate the impact of black arrivals on low-skilled male workers by race, and by industry. To account for migrants endogenous location choices in the North, I develop an instrument for black migrant flows into a northern city, using southern agricultural variables (push factors) weighted by the state-of-birth profile of a citys black migrant stock. While there is no evidence that the migration depressed wages for low-skilled workers in the North, it appears to have had a large effect on their labor force attachment, both in terms of employment rates and weeks worked. The migration of southern blacks can account for a quarter of the black-white employment gap in the North during this period.
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Authors: Boustan, Leah Platt
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Institution: National Bureau of Economic Research
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Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Migration and Immigration, Race and Ethnicity
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