From Immigrants to Americans: Race and Assimilation during the Great Migration

• 成果类型: Review
• 署名作者: Fouka, Vasiliki; Mazumder, Soumyajit; Tabellini, Marco
• 署名单位: Stanford University; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; National Bureau of Economic Research; Harvard University; Harvard University; IZA Institute Labor Economics
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6527
• DOI: 10.1093/restud/rdab038
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 811-842
• 关键词: african-americans; political-economy; social identity; selection; IMPACT; self; AGE; diversity; cognition; nation

摘要

How does the arrival of a new minority group affect the social acceptance and outcomes of existing minorities? We study this question in the context of the First Great Migration. Between 1915 and 1930, 1.5 million African Americans moved from the U.S. South to Northern urban centres, which were home to millions of European immigrants arrived in previous decades. We formalize and empirically test the hypothesis that the inflows of Black Americans changed perceptions of outgroup distance among native-born whites, reducing the barriers to the social integration of European immigrants. Predicting Black in-migration with a version of the shift-share instrument, we find that immigrants living in areas that received more Black migrants experienced higher assimilation along a range of outcomes, such as naturalization rates and intermarriages with native-born spouses. Evidence from the historical press and patterns of heterogeneity across immigrant nationalities provide additional support to the role of shifting perceptions of the white majority.