Migration and Human Capital: Self-Selection of Indentured Servants To the Americas

Abstract

Indentured servitude was an important form of white migration to America. The focus of this paper is the self-selection of indentured servants into various colonial destinations and the implications of selection for human capital evaluation. Migrants are assumed to choose their most preferred colonial destination based on factors such as their age, sex, literacy, and the length of servitude expected in each location, which is itself a function of individual's observable and unobservable characteristics. We analyze a list of 1890 migrants from England between 1718 and 1759 and find that servants were favorably selected to the mainland (especially to southern colonies) and negatively selected to the West Indies, and that self selection affected substantially the duration of servitude of newcomers. Moreover, the duration of servitude does not seem to be an important determinant of servants' destination choice.

JEL Classification: F22, J00, J61, N31, N33, O15