IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/growch/v46y2015i4p611-630.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Great Recession and the Migration Redistribution of Blacks and Whites in the U.S. South

Author

Listed:
  • Natasha Rivers
  • Richard Wright
  • Mark Ellis

Abstract

type="main"> For much of the last century, the South was a net loser of blacks and whites to other regions. The end of this “Great Migration” occurred around 1970. Since then, the South is the only U.S. region to gain both blacks and whites through migration in every decade. As recessions often perturb migration systems by restraining rates of movement and altering patterns, this paper explores how the Great Recession of 2007–2009 and its aftermath affected the established migration gains of native-born blacks and whites within the South. We use data from the 1990 and 2000 censuses and pooled data from American Community Survey to evaluate these changes. While the South continued to add both blacks and whites from migration during the recessionary years, key states bucked this trend. Georgia, for example, experienced a net migration gain of blacks but a net loss of whites. Florida added population in all time periods studied but lost large numbers of educated blacks and whites between 2008–2010. Texas, in contrast, added both blacks and whites from migration no matter their age or education throughout the recent recession. This economic downturn, then, has disturbed long-term migration patterns in the South. A more nuanced set of interstate movements has emerged, differentiated by age and education within race groups, which we suspect will last for some time.

Suggested Citation

  • Natasha Rivers & Richard Wright & Mark Ellis, 2015. "The Great Recession and the Migration Redistribution of Blacks and Whites in the U.S. South," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(4), pages 611-630, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:growch:v:46:y:2015:i:4:p:611-630
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/grow.12107
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alexander C. Vias, 2010. "The Influence of Booms and Busts in the U.S. Economy on the Interstate Migration System," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 115-135, March.
    2. Boustan, Leah Platt, 2009. "Competition in the Promised Land: Black Migration and Racial Wage Convergence in the North, 1940–1970," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 69(3), pages 755-782, September.
    3. McHugh, Kevin E, 1988. "Determinants of Black Interstate Migration, 1965-70 and 1975-80," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 22(1), pages 36-48, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dylan Shane Connor & Michael Storper, 2020. "The changing geography of social mobility in the United States," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(48), pages 30309-30317, December.
    2. Mccoy, Daire & Kotsch, Raphaela A., 2021. "Quantifying the distributional impact of energy efficiency measures," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 107933, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bryan A. Stuart & Evan J. Taylor, 2021. "Migration Networks and Location Decisions: Evidence from US Mass Migration," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 134-175, July.
    2. Richard Hornbeck, 2020. "Dust Bowl Migrants: Identifying an Archetype," Working Papers 2020-120, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    3. Susanne Prantl & Alexandra Spitz-Oener, 2020. "The Impact of Immigration on Competing Natives' Wages: Evidence from German Reunification," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(1), pages 79-97, March.
    4. Susanne Prantl & Alexandra Spitz-Oener, 2013. "Interacting Product and Labor Market Regulation and the Impact of Immigration on Native Wages," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2013_22, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    5. Collins, William J. & Wanamaker, Marianne H., 2015. "The Great Migration in Black and White: New Evidence on the Selection and Sorting of Southern Migrants," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 75(4), pages 947-992, December.
    6. Collins, William J., 2021. "The Great Migration of Black Americans from the US South: A guide and interpretation," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    7. Jung, Yeonha, 2018. "The Legacy of King Cotton: Agricultural Patterns and the Quality of Structural Change," SocArXiv trjfz, Center for Open Science.
    8. Jack DeWaard & Mathew Hauer & Elizabeth Fussell & Katherine J. Curtis & Stephan D. Whitaker & Kathryn McConnell & Kobie Price & David Egan-Robertson & Michael Soto & Catalina Anampa Castro, 2022. "User Beware: Concerning Findings from the Post 2011–2012 U.S. Internal Revenue Service Migration Data," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 41(2), pages 437-448, April.
    9. William J. Collins & Marianne H. Wanamaker, 2014. "Selection and Economic Gains in the Great Migration of African Americans: New Evidence from Linked Census Data," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 220-252, January.
    10. Howard, Greg & Ornaghi, Arianna, 2021. "Closing Time: The Local Equilibrium Effects of Prohibition," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(3), pages 792-830, September.
    11. Brian J. Cushing, 1993. "The Effect of the Social Welfare System on Metropolitan Migration in the US, by Income Group, Gender and Family Structure," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 30(2), pages 325-337, March.
    12. John Gardner, 2016. "Immigration and wages: new evidence from the African American Great Migration," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-45, December.
    13. Ran Abramitzky & Leah Boustan, 2017. "Immigration in American Economic History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1311-1345, December.
    14. Bryan A. Stuart & Evan J. Taylor, 2021. "The Effect of Social Connectedness on Crime: Evidence from the Great Migration," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(1), pages 18-33, March.
    15. Mary Kate Batistich & Timothy N Bond, 2023. "Stalled Racial Progress and Japanese Trade in the 1970s and 1980s," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(6), pages 2792-2821.
    16. Ariell Zimran, 2022. "Internal Migration in the United States: Rates, Selection, and Destination Choice, 1850-1940," NBER Working Papers 30384, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Karen Clay & Ethan J. Schmick, 2020. "The Impact of an Environmental Shock on Black-White Inequality: Evidence from the Boll Weevil," NBER Working Papers 27101, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. William H. Frey, 1995. "Immigration and Internal Migration 'Flight' from US Metropolitan Areas: Toward a New Demographic Balkanisation," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 32(4-5), pages 733-757, May.
    19. Jones, Maggie E.C. & Logan, Trevon D. & Rosé, David & Cook, Lisa D., 2024. "Black-Friendly businesses in cities during the Civil Rights Era," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    20. : Andrew Minster & Danielle Kavanagh-Smith & Lara-Zuzan Golesorkhi, 2018. "Institutionalist Review and Analysis of Immigration Effects on U.S. Jobs Markets," SCEPA working paper series. 2018-01, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:growch:v:46:y:2015:i:4:p:611-630. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0017-4815 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.