Migration Networks and Location Decisions: Evidence from US Mass Migration

Abstract

This paper studies how birth town migration networks affected long-run location decisions during historical US migration episodes. We develop a new method to estimate the strength of migration networks for each receiving and sending location. Our estimates imply that when one randomly chosen African American moved from a Southern birth town to a destination county, then 1.9 additional Black migrants made the same move on average. For White migrants from the Great Plains, the average is only 0.4. Networks were particularly important in connecting Black migrants with attractive employment opportunities and played a larger role in less costly moves. (JEL J15, J61, N32, N92, R23, Z13)

Migrant Networks and Destination Choice: Evidence from Moves Across Turkish Provinces

“…6 An alternative measure of network size would be prevalence of hometown associations at province level by source region of migrants; however, the information on source region of these associations is not available. papers that similarly model individual choices over alternative destinations and they differ from our work in that they either consider other definitions of networks (e.g., Fafchamps and Shilpi, 2013) or study developed country contexts (e.g., Jaeger, 2000;Stuart and Taylor, 2021). In this line of work, our paper is the first one that tests the role of birth place networks -so called weak ties defined at province level-in a developing country context.…”

“…There is relatively little work, however, on destination choices of internal migrants. Some of these studies are in developed country contexts (Davies et al, 2001 andStuart andTaylor, 2021 on the US; Etzo, 2011 andPiras, 2020 on Italy) while only few consider less developed ones (Fafchamps and Shilpi, 2013 on Nepal; Swee, 2017 on Thailand; Davis et al, 2002 on Mexico). This paper contributes to the literature by studying location choice of internal migrants in the context of a middle-income country-Turkey.…”

“…While there is a voluminous literature on international migrants' location propensities that focuses on developed countries as hosts (see Bartel, 1989;Bauer et al, 2005Bauer et al, , 2007Davis et al, 2002;Dunlevy, 1991;Jaeger, 2000Jaeger, , 2007Zavodny, 1999;Aslund, 2005;Damm, 2009), there are only few studies on internal migrants' location choices (see Davies et al, 2001;Davis et al, 2002;Fafchamps and Shilpi, 2013;Stuart and Taylor, 2021). This literature assesses the role of location attributes including networks, economic conditions, and amenities in alternative destinations and distance to place of origin in the destination choices of migrants.…”

“…7 In the internal migration context Swee (2017) defines networks by contacts that originate from the same village and studies effects on job search process. Etzo (2011) defines networks by lagged out-flows from a region, Piras (2020) and Stuart and Taylor (2021) by common birth region. There are also other definitions of networks adopted within internal migration context, e.g., ethno-caste, language and religion proximity (Fafchamps and Shilpi, 2013) and kinship (Banerjee, 1983 andDavis et al, 2002).…”

The Great Migration and Educational Opportunity

“…Many migrants left the South by train, especially during the first wave of the Great Migration (Black et al, 2015). These migrants relied on social networks to provide information and assistance with jobs and housing (Stuart and Taylor, 2021a). Migrants' information also came from labor agents-who offered paid transportation, employment, and housing-or newspapers from the largest cities, like Chicago and Pittsburgh (Gottlieb, 1987;Grossman, 1989).…”