Occupational Diversity and the Returns to Migration: Evidence from Linked Census Records, 1910–1940

Ryan Parsons, University of Mississippi

This paper leverages linked full-count census microdata to examine how local labor market structure shaped the occupational returns to participation in the Great Migration. Using Historical Integrated Key (HIK) identifiers from IPUMS to track over one million Black Southerners across the 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940 censuses, I estimate the effect of migration on occupational advancement while addressing selection through increasingly demanding fixed effects specifications, including within-family comparisons of siblings who made different migration decisions. My central contribution is demonstrating that occupational diversity, measured using the inverse Simpson index at both county and enumeration district levels, operated as a key mechanism governing migration returns. I document three complementary patterns. First, returns to migration were highest among individuals from the least diverse, most agriculturally specialized origin counties, consistent with an "escape from constraint" hypothesis. Second, enumeration district diversity exhibited an inverted-U relationship with returns, suggesting that moderate prior exposure to occupational diversity facilitated navigation of urban labor markets. Third, destination diversity strongly predicted gains, explaining much of the stark difference between South-to-North and within-South migration streams. These patterns operated through concrete occupational transitions. Among agricultural workers, the migration effect on escaping farming was largest for those from low-diversity origins (24 percentage points vs. 19 for high-diversity origins). Tracking individuals through 1940, I find that 82 percent of the initial migration effect persisted three decades later, indicating durable occupational transformation rather than temporary gains. These findings demonstrate the value of linked historical microdata for understanding how local economic structure mediated one of the most consequential demographic events in American history, while offering a framework—occupational diversity—applicable to contemporary studies of internal migration and economic mobility.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 107. A Day in the Life