Long-Run Convergence of Ethnic Skill Differentials

Abstract

This paper investigates if the ethnic skill differentials introduced into the United States by the inflow of very dissimilar immigrant groups during the Great Migration of 1880-1910 disappeared during the past century. An analysis of the 1910, 1940, and 1980 Censuses and the General Social Surveys revealed that ethnic differentials converge slowly. It might take four generations, or roughly 100 years, for the skill differentials introduced by the Great Migration to disappear. The analysis also indicates that the economic mobility experienced by American-born blacks resembles that of the white ethnic groups that made up the Great Migration.