The Impact of Migration on Southern Rural Areas of Chronic Depression¹

Abstract

By examining the 1979 income status of 1975–1980 inmigrants, outmigrants, and nonmigrants, we gauged the income effects of migration for a group of chronic low‐income counties in the nonmetropolitan South. The effects are demonstrated to be positive for the migrants themselves and negative for the low‐income counties. In both instances, however, the effects are unexpectedly small. By considering both in‐ and outmigrants, we show that these counties experienced a remarkable degree of income replacement and also present evidence that the results are not primarily due to the particular migration period under study. The findings give additional evidence of the substantial inefficiency at work in American migration patterns.

Spatial Redistribution of Poverty through Migration of Poor People to Depressed Rural Communities1

“…Regardless of provenience of inmigrants from the same or a nearby county or from a more distant and larger metro area, as a rural community becomes a migration destination for poor people, it both regains population and grows poorer. The term "welfare magnet" that is sometimes used in the press to refer to communities receiving a lowincome replacement population is inappropriate, however, because the main attractant seems to be inexpensive housing, followed by pre-existing social ties, rather than welfare benefits (Voss and Fuguitt 1991). Additionally, not all poor families who move to such a town turn to public assistance when they get there; nor do all of those who get on welfare stay on it for long.…”

The Effects of Rural‐to‐Urban Migration on the Poverty Status of Youth in the 1980s1

“…Price and Sikes (1975) found that rural outmigrants have higher incomes on average than those who do not migrate. Voss and Fuguitt (1991) reported that the effects of migration are positive for migrants from areas of chronic depression. Because the effects of individual characteristics are not controlled in these studies, it is not possible to ascertain whether it is migration or the characteristics of those who do or do not migrate that affect subsequent income levels.…”

Migration and the Spatial Concentration of Poverty1

“…At the national level, selective migration redistributed human capital toward metro areas at the expense of nonmetro areas in the mid-1970s and even more strongly in the mid-1980s (Lichter et al 1995). In chronically low-income counties of the South, migration was found to produce a small net loss of human capital (Voss and Fuguitt 1991) and Schwarzweller and Lean (1993) found evidence of selective outmigration from a remote area of rural Michigan. On the other hand, Dejong and Humphrey (1976) reported that Pennsylvania metro-to-nonmetro movers tended to be of higher socioeconomic status and more likely to be employed than those in the reverse stream; Ploch (1978) noted that inmigrants to (largely rural) Maine were of substantially higher socioeconomic status than nonmigrants.…”