Going South or Going Home? Trends in Concurrent Streams of African American Migrants to the US South Over Four Decades

Abstract:Since the mid-1970s, the United States (US) South has been a net destination for African American migrants. We analyzed data from 1976 to 2015 to highlight major characteristics of migrants to the US South at the Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMA) level. Grounded in neoclassical and social network migration theory, we propose there are concurrent streams of migrants—those searching for economic opportunity and those returning to homeplaces. Here, we show that the overall percentage of migrants moving to rural areas has declined from 30 percent in 1980 to 14 percent in 2015. Our results suggest the stream of migrants moving for economic opportunity has always been larger and has grown proportionally larger with time. Along with a decrease in rural-bound migration, we demonstrate an overall decrease in migration, a concentration of migrants in a shrinking number of urban centers, and an unexpected increase in the human capital of rural migrants. Our findings have forced us to reckon with assumptions that professionals leaving cities for rural communities is a uniquely white phenomenon, challenged us to consider the importance of social ties to urban areas, and raised questions about the role of technology as a deterrent to moving home.Abstract:Desde mediados de los años 70, el sureste de los EE.UU. ha sido un destino neto para los migrantes afroamericanos. Analizamos datos del 1976 al 2015 para resaltar las características importantes de los migrantes al sur estadounidense en el nivel de áreas de microdatos de uso público (PUMA). Fundamentados en la teoría neoclásica y de migración de redes sociales, proponemos que hay flujos concurrentes de migrantes, aquellos que buscan oportunidades económicas y aquellos que regresan a sus lugares de origen. Aquí, mostramos que el porcentaje total de migrantes que se mudan a áreas rurales ha disminuido del 30 por ciento en 1980 al 14 por ciento en 2015. Nuestros resultados sugieren que la corriente de migrantes en busca de oportunidades económicas siempre ha sido mayor y ha crecido proporcionalmente con el tiempo. Junto con una disminución en la migración de origen rural, demostramos una disminución general de la migración, una concentración de migrantes en un número cada vez menor de centros urbanos y un aumento inesperado en el capital humano de los migrantes rurales. Nuestros hallazgos nos obligaron a suponer que los profesionales que abandonan las ciudades para las comunidades rurales son un fenómeno exclusivamente blanco, nos desafiaron a considerar la importancia de los vínculos sociales con las áreas urbanas y plantearon dudas sobre el papel de la tecnología como elemento disuasivo para mudarse a casa.

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