Geographic Migration of Black and White Families Over Four ......migration” that extends beyond individual lifetimes and reaches across generations of family members. Three research

Geographic Migration of Black and White Families OverFour Generations

Patrick Sharkey

Published online: 21 January 2015# Population Association of America 2015

Abstract This article analyzes patterns of geographic migration of black and whiteAmerican families over four consecutive generations. The analysis is based on a uniqueset of questions in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) asking respondentsabout the counties and states in which their parents and grandparents were raised. Usingthis information along with the extensive geographic information available in the PSIDsurvey, the article tracks the geographic locations of four generations of family mem-bers and considers the ways in which families and places are linked together over thecourse of a family’s history. The patterns documented in the article are consistent withmuch of the demographic literature on the Great Migration of black Americans out ofthe South, but they reveal new insights into patterns of black migration after the GreatMigration. In the most recent generation, black Americans have remained in place to adegree that is unique relative to the previous generation and relative to whites of thesame generation. This new geographic immobility is the most pronounced change inblack Americans’ migration patterns after the Great Migration, and it is a pattern thathas implications for the demography of black migration as well as the literature onracial inequality.

Keywords Intergenerational migration . Race

Introduction

Research on the migration of black Americans is commonly studied from a temporalperspective, focusing on the scale and direction of migration at different historicalperiods or points in time. The most notable example is the extensive literature on theGreat Migration of black Americans out of the rural South and into the cities of theNortheast, Midwest, and West (Tolnay 2003). This article takes a different approach,analyzing migration from a generational perspective. Drawing on a unique data set

Demography (2015) 52:209–231DOI 10.1007/s13524-014-0368-8

P. Sharkey (*)Department of Sociology, New York University, Puck Building, Room 4102, 295 Lafayette Street,New York, NY 10012, USAe-mail: [email protected]

capturing geographic migration over four consecutive generations of black andwhite families, the analysis examines intergenerational migration during andafter the Great Migration.

The multigenerational approach analyzes migration as a process in which thegeographic locations of families are linked together across generations. This approachis consistent with a research tradition that views patterns of migration from a networkperspective, where origin and destination places are linked by flows of individuals,families, or members of a residential, national, or ethnic community (Massey 1990).The generational approach also is consistent with the literature on black Americanmigration based on oral histories and qualitative research, which emphasizes familialconnections to places that extend over long periods of time and across generations offamily members (Lemann 1991; Stack 1996; Wilkerson 2010). One implication of thisresearch is that the migration patterns of each generation of family members cannot beunderstood as isolated from the migration patterns over the course of a family’s history.

Building on this idea, the analysis examines migration patterns over long periods offamily histories. Whereas previous research has focused on flows of migration occur-ring in different historical periods, the generational perspective allows for comparisonsof migration patterns from one generation of family members to the next. Patterns ofcontinuity and change in families’ residential locations are observable over a longerperiod of families’ histories than is possible using other sources of data like thecensus, making it possible to consider new flows of migration in relation to afamily’s geographic roots. This approach allows for a long-term analysis of “returnmigration” that extends beyond individual lifetimes and reaches across generationsof family members.

Three research questions guide the analysis. First, what do flows of black and whitemigration look like in each of the past four generations, and to what extent do thesepatterns align with patterns analyzed from a temporal perspective? Second, how havepatterns of migration changed for the most recent generation of black Americans inrelation to previous generations and in relation to whites? Finally, how does demo-graphic knowledge about return migration change when analyzed from a multigener-ational perspective?

Migration of Blacks and Whites Over the Twentieth Century

Historian Ira Berlin described the black American experience as one that has beendominated, paradoxically, by both large-scale migration and by a unique attachment toplaces (Berlin 2010). Berlin argued that the scale, the coherent structure, and thehistorical context of black Americans’ migrations into and within the United Stateshas led to a unique significance that is attached to both geographic movement itself andto the places in which black Americans have located. Whereas Berlin’s study extendedall the way back to the Middle Passage to the Americas, the current study is similar tomuch of the demographic literature on the topic in focusing attention on migration ofblack Americans from a period beginning roughly at the start of the twentieth centuryand running through the latter half of the 2000s.

This literature is dominated by research on the Great Migration of black Americansout of the rural South and into the cities of the Northeast, Midwest, and West.

210 P. Sharkey

Beginning in the second decade of the twentieth century and ending in the 1960s, theGreat Migration resulted in more than 4 million black Americans who were born in theSouth living elsewhere by 1980 (Tolnay 2003). The migration of black Americans outof the South led different segments of the black population to different destinations atdifferent times. Movement to cities in the Northeast and Midwest was prevalentthroughout the Great Migration, whereas migration to cities on the West Coast beganin earnest in the 1940s in response to growing demand for labor around World War II(Tolnay 2003; Tolnay et al. 2005).

Migration was driven by a complex combination of “push” and “pull” factors(Fligstein 1981; Lemann 1991; Marks 1989). In the South, obstructed opportunitiesfor economic mobility combined with declining opportunity and government interven-tion into the agricultural economy of the South, the persistence of Jim Crow, and racialviolence to drive black Americans to seek opportunity elsewhere (Fligstein 1981;Tolnay and Beck 1992). Growing demand for low-skilled labor, active recruitmentby firms from the North, and the emergence of “ethnogenic” supports drew them tocities of the Northeast and Midwest (Marks 1989; Price-Spratlen 1999, 2008). Therelative influence of the various push and pull factors driving the Great Migrationremains a topic of central interest in the field, but in this article, I bracket the question ofwhy black Americans left the South and instead focus on how they moved. This articleconsiders the directional flows of migration with each passing generation and thedegree to which members of individual families stay in place or return to the geo-graphic locations of their families, generations earlier.

Research on black migration from the 1970s forward is much less extensive, but onecentral finding from descriptive analyses of census records is that there has been areversal of the direction of net migration over this period. Since the 1970s, the Southhas drawn a growing stream of black American migrants from the rest of the country, asdocumented with census data, ethnographic evidence, and anecdotal evidence fromblack Americans who have decided to return to the South or move there for the firsttime (Adelman et al. 2000; Bilefsky 2011; Copeland 2011; Curtis 2011; Frey 2004;Hunt et al. 2008; Long and Hansen 1975; Robinson 1986; Stack 1996). Frey (2004)identified the movement South as the “New Great Migration” of black Americans, andargued that this new pattern is driven by a combination of improving racial climate andexpanding economic opportunity in southern states, along with a lingering culturalattachment to the region (see also Falk et al. 2004). In a qualitative study of returnmigration to rural areas in the Carolinas, Stack (1996) emphasized the importance offamilial ties to specific locations in the South, where family members may still belocated, as a primary explanation for the new stream of migration southward.

The shift in the direction of migration is unmistakable, but Tolnay (2003) noted thatdemographic research on return migration to the South is based largely on responses toquestions from the census asking respondents where they were born, where theycurrently live, and whether they have moved in the prior five years. Tolnay(2003:224) suggested further that longitudinal data may provide a more refined pictureof return migration, and pointed to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics as a data setthat “holds promise” for studying such patterns. This article responds to this call forlongitudinal research on the migration patterns of American families and confirms thepromise for such approaches to provide a more refined and nuanced description ofmigration patterns across generations.

Geographic Migration of Blacks and Whites Over Four Generations 211

Although the primary focus of this article is on the migration of black Americans,patterns of migration over four generations of white Americans are described to providea point of comparison. The literature on white migration over the past century is lessextensive, perhaps because patterns of long-range migration among whites are lesscoherent and less structured than those for black Americans. That said, patterns ofwhite migration are related to patterns of black migration over time. Whereas the GreatMigration out of the South is associated with black Americans, whites also moved outof the South in large numbers for much of the twentieth century, drawn by some of thesame economic push and pull factors as black Americans (Tolnay et al. 2005). In thedecades since 1970, whites have migrated to the South just as black Americans have,although more of the white migration is “primary” migration rather than returnmigration, meaning that whites are more likely to be moving to the South for the firsttime in their lives (Hunt et al. 2008).

Migration From a Network Perspective

This article follows in the tradition of research on international migration in adopting anetwork perspective on flows of migration. Perhaps the most succinct statement of thisperspective is found in Massey’s theory of cumulative causation, which provides atheory to explain flows of migration from specified origins to specified destinations(Massey 1990; see also MacDonald and MacDonald 1964; Massey et al. 1993; Tilly1968). Acknowledging the role of push and pull factors present in the origin anddestination locales, this theory draws attention to the ways that geographically linkedsocial or familial networks can facilitate flows of migration across places. According tothe theory of cumulative causation, each migrant from a specified origin to a specifieddestination increases the likelihood of additional migrants by expanding knowledge ofthe destination place, establishing institutions and residential settlements in the desti-nation place, and providing resources to facilitate housing and economic opportunities.The theory suggests that specific origin and destination places are linked togetherthrough flows of migrants in ways that are at least partially independent of any generalpush and pull factors that might lead to regional migration.

Much of the research on black American migration out of the South supports thisperspective through written and oral histories about the networks of support andinformation that migrants utilized to help facilitate the transition to a new part of thecountry and a new social world (Ballard 1984; Lemann 1991; Marks 1989; Tilly 1968;Wilkerson 2010). The demographic literature on the Great Migration also supports theidea that flows of migration out of the South were highly structured, with specific originand destination places tightly linked by flows of migrants. However, much of thisresearch has considered only networks of migration at the state level, making it difficultto assess whether the mobility decisions of individuals and families from specific townsand cities in the South were influenced or facilitated by friends or neighbors who hadpreviously moved to a new destination. The analysis in this article provides a morelocalized portrait of migration networks by describing the degree to which counties arelinked by flows of migration.

This article considers networks of family members across generations in addition tonetworks of places linked by migration. Whereas much of the analysis examines

212 P. Sharkey

patterns of migration from one generation to the next, the final analysis examines returnmigration that occurs across all four generations of family members. In this application,return migration to the county of origin occurs when a family member moves fromCounty A in one generation to a different county in a different part of the country in asubsequent generation, and then returns to County A in a subsequent generation. In herethnographic study of black Americans who have migrated to the South, Stack (1996)argued that family and social ties to places that persist for generations are a primaryfactor in explaining why blacks choose to “return” to the South, even if they have neverpersonally lived there before (see also Cromartie and Stack 1989; Falk et al. 2004).Because prior demographic research on return migration has considered only whereindividuals were born and where they currently live, this literature has failed to capturethe types of multigenerational ties that Stack identified as central to the migrationpatterns of black Americans. This study provides a multigenerational perspective onreturn migration that looks beyond the experiences of a single individual to considerfamily histories that extend across generations.

Data

The analysis draws on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), anongoing longitudinal survey begun in 1968 with about 4,800 families (Hill and Morgan1992). The PSID is composed of multiple samples. First, the Survey Research Center(SRC) sample is a nationally representative sample of American households as of 1967.Second, the Survey of Economic Opportunity (SEO) sample is an oversample of low-income households. A document describing the selection of the SEO sample notesseveral uncertainties about the procedures that were used to select the original sample(Brown 1996). However, using the Current Population as a reference point, severalsubsequent studies have shown that the SEO sample is representative of the low-income population (Becketti et al. 1988; Fitzgerald et al. 1998a, 1998b). The analysisfiles use both the SRC and SEO samples, which is necessary in order to obtain anadequate sample of blacks and whites. Because not enough members of other ethnicgroups are available in the data to include in the analysis, the sample is limited to blacksand whites. Several decades after the PSID began, additional samples were included inorder to make the survey representative of the changing population in the United States.These supplementary samples are excluded from the analysis because only a smallnumber of the supplementary sample members have been in the survey for a sufficientnumber of years to appear in the data as children and again as adults. Interviews ofsample families were conducted annually from 1968 through 1997, when the PSIDswitched to a biennial survey. The file used for this article includes survey years from1968 through 2007.

The PSID follows family members of the original sample as they split off from thesample family and form their own households, allowing for the analysis of intergener-ational relationships. The analysis sample is based on a focal cohort of black and whiteindividuals in PSID households who were born between 1952 and 1982 and wereobserved as members of PSID sample households as children and as adults. Measuresof childhood geographic locations for this cohort are based on geocoded data on thefamily’s residential address from the age of 0 through 17. To identify the single county


in which the child was “raised,” I use the county at which the child’s family lived forthe greatest number of survey years during childhood. If the child lived in more thanone county for the same number of years, the earliest county is used. I use the sameapproach to identify the single county in which individuals in the focal cohort lived inadulthood, defined over all years in which the individual was at least 26 years old andwas the head of household or the spouse of the head of household. Again, the county ofresidence is defined as the county in which the individual lived for the greatest numberof years during adulthood.

The two measures of geographic location described to this point represent thelocations in which the focal cohort lived in childhood and in adulthood, respectively.Throughout the rest of the article, these measures are identified as the locations ofGenerations 3 and 4. To be clear, Generation 4 does not represent a distinct set ofindividuals. Rather, Generation 4 represents the geographic locations of the sameindividuals from Generation 3, but observed in adulthood.

It is possible to measure the childhood geographic locations of the focal cohort’sparents and grandparents through a unique set of questions asked of PSID household headsabout the county and state in which they were raised and the county and state in which theirparents were raised.1 These questions are used to measure the geographic locations duringchildhood of the focal cohorts’ grandparents and parents, who are referred to as Generations1 and 2, respectively. In most cases, the household heads are fathers; thus, data fromGenerations 1 and 2 usually refer to the geographic locations of the paternal side of thefocal cohort’s family. Data are available for the household head’s mother as well, or thepaternal grandmothers of the focal cohort. This information is used to create a morecomprehensive measure of return migration that considers migration to the childhoodlocation of the paternal grandfather or paternal grandmother.2 A summary of the definitionsfor each generation is included in Table 1.

The final sample includes 4,543 black and white families with nonmissing data onthe county and state of four consecutive generations. Missing data arise from severalsources. Although some data are missing on the locations of Generations 3 and 4, it isminimal. Most of the missing data are on the locations of Generations 1 and 2, which isnot surprising given that these measures are based on retrospective accounts of wherethe household head and his or her parents were raised. Data are also missing if theindividual was not raised in the United States, leaving new immigrants to the UnitedStates underrepresented in the sample. The sample can be thought of as representativeof white and black families with children who have been in the United States over thefour consecutive generations. It is possible to explore how the restrictions on inclusionin the sample affect results describing migration patterns in the most recent generations

1 Household heads were asked a very simple set of questions about the county and state in which they grewup. The same questions were asked of the household head about the household head’s parents. In later years ofthe survey, the questions also were asked about the parents of the spouse of the household head, but thisinformation is not included in the analysis because it is not available for most of the sample.2 Children who are living in a household in which the household head is not the child’s mother or father areexcluded from the analysis because some children are raised by grandparents or other relatives who aresubstantially older than their own parents. In this scenario, the analysis would skip a generation in the family:the analysis would span four generations for most families and five generations for a small portion of thesample, leading to a more muddled picture overall. This restriction excludes 565 individuals from the finalsample. I conducted analyses of staying in place and return migration with this sample included in order toassess the sensitivity of the results. I found no differences in results.

214 P. Sharkey

by comparing findings using the sample with nonmissing data in all four generations toa larger sample that includes individuals with nonmissing geographic information fromonly Generations 3 or 4 (regardless of whether data are missing for Generations 1 or 2).These sensitivity tests showed some slight differences in results, but none of thedifferences were substantively meaningful.

The analyses in Tables 2 and 3 are based on a smaller sample of individuals inthe focal cohort who are the firstborn children in their households.3 I use thisrestriction to avoid “double-counting” the migration patterns of Generation 1 andGeneration 2 individuals in families with more than one child. This restriction is notnecessary for the remainder of the analyses, which focus on the migration patternsof Generations 3 and 4.

The geographic locations of the counties of residence for all four consecutivegenerations are geocoded based on the centroid of the county. Because data on theage of individuals in each generation are not available, it is not possible to know exactlywhen the individual lived within the given county. For this reason, there is error in thegeocoded locations of the counties resulting from changes in county borders over time.The geocoded locations of counties for Generations 3 and 4 in the analysis are likely tobe coded with less error than the locations of Generations 1 and 2. Also, it is importantto acknowledge that the measures of geographic location are not perfectly consistentacross all four generations. Data on the counties and states in which Generations 1 and2 were raised are based on the recollections of household heads, whereas data on thecounties and states in which Generations 3 and 4 were raised are based on geocodedaddress data supplied by staff from the PSID. Again, data from the first two generationsof the analysis are likely to contain more measurement error, although it is difficult toknow exactly how this error influences the patterns documented in the analysis. One

3 Technically, the children who are observed over the longest period of adulthood are selected. This is usuallythe firstborn child in the household.

Table 1 Definitions for each generation in the four-generation sample

Generation 1 Generation 2Generation 3(focal cohort) Generation 4

Definition Fathers and mothers ofGeneration 2

Household heads infamilies of focal cohort

Children born1952–1982,observed duringchildhood (0–17)

Focal cohort inadulthood (26 andolder)

Details Data from fathers are thedefault for analyses ofdirectional migration.Data from fathers andmothers used for analysesof return migration.

Household heads areusually the fathers inPSID households.

Equal distributionof males andfemales

Equal distributionof males andfemales

Source ofData

Retrospective informationon place where parents“grew up” provided byGeneration 2individuals

Retrospective informationon place where individuals“grew up” provided byGeneration2 individuals

Geocoded data onlocation wherechild spent mostyears duringchildhood

Geocoded data onlocation whereindividual spentmost years duringadulthood


might speculate that families who have moved long distances across generations wouldbe more likely to have missing data on geographic locations in Generations 1 and 2. Ifthis is the case, then the patterns describing change in geographic location over time arelikely to be biased toward geographic immobility in Generations 1 and 2.

Most of the analysis consists of descriptive comparisons of migration patterns forblacks and whites, but two additional analyses of geographic immobility and returnmigration compare blacks and whites while controlling for a set of family demographic

Table 2 The direction of intergenerational migration for blacks and whites over four generations

Blacks Whites

Westward No Movement Eastward Westward No Movement Eastward

Direction of Movement From Generation 1 to Generation 2

Northward 2 5 6 5 2 2

No movement 1 84 0 3 83 2

Southward 1 0 1 2 1 1









Notes: Cells represent the percentage of all black and white families who exit the origin state and move at least100 miles in each given direction from one generation to the next. Cells in the center of the matrix representthe percentage of families that remain in the same state or do not move at least 100 miles in any direction. Allfigures are weighted using individual weights. Sample size includes families with nonmissing data in all fourgenerations and is limited to include only the firstborn children of the Generation 2 households. The relevantsample size is n = 2,111, although a small amount of data are missing on county geocode data in eachgeneration.

Table 3 The percentage of black and white families remaining in the same county, state, and region/division,respectively, from one generation to the next

Percentage Remaining inSame County

Percentage Remainingin Same State

Percentage Remaining inSame Region/Division

Blacks Whites Blacks Whites Blacks Whites

Generation 1 to 2 56 51 80 79 84 86

Generation 2 to 3 50 46 65 * 74 74 * 82

Generation 3 to 4 69 ** 45 82 ** 74 90 ** 81

Notes: Sample size includes families with nonmissing data in all four generations, and is limited to includeonly the firstborn children of the Generation 2 households (n = 2,111). All figures are weighted usingindividual weights. Tests for significant differences between blacks and whites are indicated as follows:

*p < .05; **p < .01

216 P. Sharkey

and social and economic characteristics. These analyses include several dimensions offamily background that are measured over the duration of the focal cohort’s childhoodyears (age 0–17). Similar information on family background is not available forGenerations 1 and 2 because they were not in the sample during their childhood years.Information on family characteristics in Generation 4 is not included in any analysesbecause these characteristics are endogenous to migration patterns in the previousgeneration and thus are not appropriate as control variables.

The control variables in these additional analyses include the following: total familyincome, which is the log of summed income from all members of the sample family,inflated using the CPI-U-RS; parental years of schooling, which measures the totalnumber of years schooling for the parent who has the most education in the household;the total annual hours worked, which represents the estimated hours worked on all jobsin the year prior to the interview grouped into three categories (less than 250 hours (thereference category), 250–1999, and 2000 hours or more); marital status, which ismeasured with an indicator for whether the child’s parents were married over the fullperiod of childhood (relative to families in which the household head is always notmarried or sometimes married); the number of children in the household, againaveraged over all years in which the individual is observed; the age and squared ageof the household head and of the child; the gender of the child (male = 1);homeownership, which represents the proportion of years observed in which the familyowned their home; and welfare receipt, measured with a dichotomous indicator forwhether the individual or his/her spouse ever reported receiving any income fromprograms typically referred to as “welfare,” including ADC, AFDC, or TANF. Anadditional specification (not shown in the tables) includes a measure of public housing,an indicator for whether the child’s family lived in a public housing project or otherwiselived in an apartment or home owned by a public agency. This measure is excludedfrom reported analyses because it contains extensive missing data, but I include a noteto describe how model results change when this measure is included.

Results

Migration Flows of Black and White Families Over Four Generations

The direction of migration flows for blacks and whites is displayed in Table 2, whichexamines the most common direction of movement in each generation. In this table,directed migration flows are defined by movement in any direction that leads the familyout of its origin state and at least 100 miles in any direction (that is, either 100 miles tothe east or west, or 100 miles to the north or south). The table shows the percentage ofall flows among blacks and whites in each generation, respectively, that led thefamily northward or southward, westward or eastward. For instance, in the toppanel of Table 2, the cell in the top right corner of the matrix for blackAmericans indicates that 6 % of all families left their origin state and movedat least 100 miles northward and at least 100 miles eastward from Generation 1to Generation 2. Five percent of black American families left their origin stateand moved at least 100 miles northward but did not move eastward orwestward; another 2 % moved northward and westward. The cell in the middle


indicates that 84 % of black Americans either did not leave their origin state ordid not move at least 100 miles in any direction.

Focusing on migration from Generation 1 to 2, the dominant direction of migrationfor black Americans was northward (5 %) and northward and eastward (6 %). Forwhites, the most common direction of movement was northward and westward, a pathtaken by 5 % of all white families. Note that most of the black American populationwas located in the South at this point, which affects the interpretation of racialdifferences in the direction of mobility. However, when the sample is limited to whiteand black families living in the South in Generation 1, there are no substantivedifferences in the direction of migration for blacks or whites.

From Generation 2 to 3, black Americans’ migration northward intensified: 27 % ofblack American families moved out of their origin state and at least 100 miles north.The largest share of this group, 16 %, moved northward and eastward, reflectingmigration to the cities of the Midwest and Northeast. Whites did not follow the samecoherent pattern of migration. Whites were more likely to move westward thaneastward, but their migration was fairly evenly distributed across all directions. Whenthe sample is limited to families originating in the South, the direction of migration forwhites and blacks looks similar to what is shown in the table, although a largerpercentage of black families moved northward. Analyses not shown in the tableindicate that 30 % of black families originating in the South moved northwardfrom Generation 2 to Generation 3, compared with 14 % of white familiesoriginating in the South.

From Generation 3 to 4, migration among whites is close to evenly distributed in alldirections, with the largest migration moving southward and westward. For blackAmericans, the steady flow of movement northward ended in the latest generation.The largest share of blacks moved southward and westward, although only 4 % ofblack American families moved in this direction. Whereas previous research hasfocused attention on the new migration of blacks to the South, the figures in Table 2suggest that this is little more than a trickle southward: overall, 8 % of black Americanfamilies moved southward in this latest generation, and 6 % moved northward. It iscertainly true that the strong flow migration northward has come to a halt in the latestgeneration of black Americans, but results provide little support for the conclusion thatthere is a new, large-scale migration southward. The more appropriate conclusion fromthe figures in Table 2 is that there is no dominant direction of migration amongthe latest generation of black Americans. Most notable in this latest generationis the proportion of black Americans who have stayed in place, as representedby the 85 % of families that did not leave their origin state and move at least100 miles in any direction. This finding is explored in more depth in thefollowing section.

The results from black Americans shown in Table 2 can be summarized succinctlyfor each generation. From Generation 1 to Generation 2, migration across states was notextensive, but migration followed a dominant directional pattern northward as well asnorthward and eastward. From Generation 2 to Generation 3, growth in the proportionof families moving out of their home states was pronounced, and the dominantdirection of migration was, again, northward. From Generation 3 to Generation 4,movement out of families’ origin states was much less prevalent, and the movementnorthward ended. A new flow of migration emerged moving southward, which was

218 P. Sharkey

virtually nonexistent in previous generations; however, the direction of migration wasfairly balanced overall.

A complementary visual depiction of black migration flows in each generation isprovided in Fig. 1. The maps in the figure provide perhaps the clearest description ofthe dominant direction of the network structure of black migration flows over succes-sive generations.4 The maps confirm a pattern in which the flow of migration out of theSouth is clearly visible in the map showing migration from Generation 1 to 2,then intensifies from Generation 2 to Generation 3, and finally dissipates andpartially reverses in the most recent generation. Consistent with prior research,Fig. 1 reveals how the geography of the Great Migration changed over time,with greater movement westward occurring in the latter stages. The figure alsoconfirms that the structured migration out of the South ended in the most recentgeneration.

Geographic Immobility

One of the interesting findings from Table 2 is the growth in the proportion of blackfamilies who did not migrate from Generation 3 to Generation 4. Table 3 explores thisfinding further by showing the prevalence of geographic immobility, defined as theproportion of individuals who remained in the same county, state, and region/divisionin each successive generation of black and white families. The table reveals differencesby race in the prevalence of geographic immobility in each passing generation. FromGeneration 1 to 2, only minimal racial differences exist in the degree to which blacksand whites remained in the same county, state, and region/division as their parents.Black Americans were slightly more likely to remain in the same county fromGeneration 1 to 2, but this difference is substantively small: 56 % of blackAmericans in Generation 2 remained in the same county in adulthood, compared with51 % of whites, a nonsignificant difference.

Racial differences in the prevalence of geographic immobility are more pronouncedin the subsequent generation. From Generation 2 to 3, black Americans were less likelythan whites to remain in the same state or the same region/division. Fifty percent ofblacks remained in the same county as their parents, 65 % remained in the same state,and 74 % remained in the same region/division. For whites, 46 % remained in the samecounty from Generation 2 to 3, 74 % remained in the same state, and 82 % remained inthe same region/division. Racial differences in the prevalence of geographic immobilityat the state and region/division level are statistically significant. Compared with theprevious generation and with whites of the same generation, black Americans weremore likely to make long-distance moves that brought them across state and regionallines from Generation 2 to Generation 3. The high rates of cross-state and cross-region/division mobility among black Americans in this generation is consistent with previousresearch on the scale of migration flows during the Great Migration. It is in thisgeneration that black Americans were highly likely to cross the borders of states andregions in moving to the Northeast, the Midwest, and the West.

4 The maps were constructed using software developed by sociologist Manish Nag called “Sonoma NetworkMapping Software” (Nag 2009), which allows for the visual display of network data with a spatial component.The software is available online (http://princeton.edu/~mnag/sonoma).


http://princeton.edu/%7Emnag/sonoma

a. Flows of migration for black Americans from Generation 1 to Generation 2

b. Flows of migration for black Americans from Generation 2 to Generation 3

c. Flows of migration for black Americans from Generation 3 to Generation 4

Fig. 1 Flows of migration from Generation 1 to 2 (panel a), from Generation 2 to 3 (panel b), and Generation3 to Generation 4 (panel c) for black Americans. Maps were created with Sonoma Network MappingSoftware. Arrows reflect the size of the migration flow across counties, with smaller arrows and lightershades representing smaller flows. The smallest quarter of all cross-county flows are not shown in the figure

220 P. Sharkey

This pattern is reversed for the most recent generation. Displaying immobilitybetween Generation 3 and 4, the bottom row of Table 3 reveals that black Americansin Generation 4 were much more likely than whites to remain in the same county, state,and region/division upon reaching adulthood. Among black Americans in Generation4, 69 % remained in the same county from childhood to adulthood, compared with45 % of whites; 82 % remained in the same state, compared with 74 % of whites; and90 % remained in the same region/division, compared with 81 % of whites. All racialdifferences are highly significant. The degree of intergenerational geographic immo-bility among black Americans not only is much greater than for whites but alsorepresents a marked shift from the prior generation. Whereas flows of blackAmericans from Generation 2 to 3 reflect the prevalence of long-range migration,flows from Generation 3 to 4 reflect a unique geographic stability, a “transmission” ofplaces from one generation to the next. The most recent generation of black Americansis thus unique, relative to the same generation of whites and relative to the previousgeneration of black Americans, in the degree to which it has remained tied to places.5

I further examine the racial difference in geographic immobility from Generation 3to 4 in an additional analysis that estimates the probability of remaining in place as alinear function of race and a set of family-level demographic and economic character-istics measured over the course of the focal cohort’s childhood.6 I use two specificationsfor analyses of geographic immobility at the county, state, and region/division levels,respectively. The first specification documents the unadjusted difference in the proba-bility of black Americans staying in place from Generation 3 to 4. The secondspecification shows the same difference after adjusting for observable measures offamily characteristics. In both specifications, the outcome is dichotomous, and the tabledisplays results from a linear probability model that is weighted by the populationweights used in all other analyses.

The first column from Table 4 shows the unadjusted racial gap in geographicimmobility and indicates that black Americans are 22 percentage points more likelythan whites to have remained in the same county from Generation 3 to 4. When familydemographic and economic characteristics are controlled, blacks are 15 percentagepoints more likely to have remained in the same county from one generation to thenext. The unadjusted racial gap in remaining in the same state is much smaller. BlackAmericans in Generation 3 are 8 percentage points more likely than whites to haveremained in the same state in Generation 4, and the adjusted gap is 6 percentage pointsafter family characteristics are controlled. The fifth column of results in Table 4 showsthat blacks are 9 percentage points more likely to have remained in the same region/division from Generation 3 to 4, and the racial gap is 8 percentage points and remainsstatistically significant after family characteristics are controlled.

5 The racial gap in geographic immobility is reflected in national data from the census (Ruggles et al. 2010).An analysis of non-Hispanic black and white adults’ current state of residence compared with their state ofbirth shows that in census years from 1930 to 1980, black Americans age 26–45 were equally or less likelythan whites to live in their state of birth. In census years 1990, 2000, and 2010, black American adults weremore likely than whites to live in their state of birth. For instance, in 2010, 69 % of black American adultslived in the same state in which they were born, compared with 62 % of whites.6 This analysis is not possible for earlier generations because survey data were not collected for Generations 1and 2 during childhood. Because the analysis is restricted to Generations 3 and 4, the sample for the analysis isnot restricted to the firstborn children in Generation 3 households but includes all individuals in families withnonmissing data on state and county of residence in all four generations.


Beyond race, there are few consistent predictors of geographic immobility amongthe measures of family background included in the specifications. Children fromfamilies in which parents had more schooling and higher income are less likely tohave remained in the same county, state, and region/division in adulthood (the estimat-ed association between income and remaining in the same county is not statisticallysignificant). Children from families in which the parents were married throughoutchildhood are more likely to have remained in the same region/division in adulthood,and children from larger families are more likely to have remained in the same state andregion/division, respectively. Overall, these results suggest that social and economicstatus and family structure are predictive of remaining in place from one generation tothe next. Children from families with higher social and economic status are more likelyto have left, and children from larger families in which the parents were stably marriedare more likely to have remained in place.7 However, these family characteristics playonly a limited role in explaining why black Americans have been more likely to remainin place in the most recent generation.

Intergenerational Return Migration

The last analysis considers the new flow of black migration toward the South thatemerged in the most recent generation. Ethnographic studies and journalistic accountsof this new stream of migration have argued that migration to the South reflects a desireamong black Americans to return to the locations of their ancestors in the period priorto the Great Migration (Bilefsky 2011; Copeland 2011; Curtis 2011; Stack 1996). Theimplication is that much of the southward flow of migration in the most recentgeneration is “return” migration undertaken by families that have lived in theSouth, either earlier in their own lives or in prior generations. The multigenera-tional perspective that is provided by the PSID allows for an empirical assessmentof the prevalence of return migration, to the South and elsewhere, among blacksand whites over four generations.

Table 5 displays the prevalence of return migration for blacks and whites, defined infour different ways. In all cases, the family is identified as eligible for return migrationif the household members in Generation 2 or Generation 3 lived outside the region/division in which either the mother or father in Generation 1 of the household wasraised. The family is defined as a return migrant family if the Generation 4 householdmember returned to the original county (or state or region/division, respectively) inwhich either the mother or father from Generation 1 was raised.

In the first row of results, the prevalence of return migration is measured as aproportion of all families, regardless of whether the family ever left the origin region/division. When the full sample of black families is used as the denominator, about 1 %of black American families are defined as return migrants to the same county, 3 % arereturn migrants to the same state, and 3 % are return migrants to the same region/

7 Long (1988) argued that receipt of public assistance may tie families to specific places that offer limitedeconomic opportunity. In the results reported in Table 4, receipt of cash welfare is not associated withremaining in place. However, in separate results (not shown here), a measure of residence in public housingis significantly associated with remaining in the same state and the same region/division from Generation 3 to4. Including the measure of public housing does not reduce the size of the racial gaps in geographic immobilityshown in Table 4. This measure is not included in the main results because it has extensive missing data.

222 P. Sharkey

division. Among whites, less than 0.5 % of all families are return migrants to the samecounty of origin, 1 % are return migrants to the same state, and 3 % are return migrantsto the same region/division. These figures indicate that the prevalence of returnmigration is low for all families.

The second set of rows displays the prevalence of return migration among familieswho left their origin region/division in any generation. With this subset of the sample

Table 4 Multivariate models of remaining in the same county, state, or region/division from Generation 3 to 4

Probability of Remaining in the Same County, State, or Region/Division From Generation 3 to 4

County State Region/Division

Black 0.219** 0.148** 0.084** 0.057* 0.089** 0.077**

(0.022) (0.026) (0.019) (0.023) (0.015) (0.020)

Head’s Years of Schooling –0.037** –0.022** –0.015**

(0.005) (0.004) (0.003)

Head’s Annual Hours Worked(250–1,999)

–0.034 –0.017 –0.066†

(0.057) (0.050) (0.034)

Head’s Annual Hours Worked (2,000+) –0.068 –0.000 –0.051

(0.061) (0.054) (0.037)

Head’s Age 0.026* 0.019† –0.003

(0.011) (0.010) (0.006)

Head’s Age, Squared –0.000** –0.000† 0.000

(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)

Child’s Age –0.005 –0.015 0.007

(0.031) (0.028) (0.025)

Child’s Age, Squared 0.000 0.000 –0.000

(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)

Child Is Male 0.017 –0.022 –0.034*

(0.018) (0.016) (0.015)

Family Income (log) –0.001 –0.063** –0.045*

(0.025) (0.022) (0.019)

Family Owns Home 0.027 0.057* 0.046*

(0.030) (0.026) (0.023)

Family Member Receives Welfare 0.054 –0.045 –0.050

(0.062) (0.057) (0.051)

Head Is Married 0.025 0.035 0.047*

(0.024) (0.022) (0.020)

Number of Children in Family 0.005 –0.010† –0.010†

(0.007) (0.006) (0.006)

Notes: Standard errors are shown in parentheses. n = 4,498. Sample size includes families with nonmissingstate and county data in all four generations but is not limited to include only the firstborn children of theGeneration 2 households. All figures are weighted using individual weights.†p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01


used as the denominator, the prevalence of return migration is greater. Four percent ofblack American families are defined as return migrants to the same county, 8 % arereturn migrants to the same state, and 9 % are return migrants to the same region/division. For whites, 1 % of eligible families are return migrants to the same county oforigin, 6 % are return migrants to the same state, and 11 % are return migrants to thesame region/division. Only the difference between blacks and whites in return migra-tion to the county of origin is significantly different from zero.

The third and fourth rows of the table limit the focus to families originating in theSouth, the group to whom the narrative of return migration is most commonly applied.With all families originating in the South used as the denominator, the third row ofresults shows that 1 % of eligible black families are return migrants to the same county,3 % are return migrants to the same state, and 3 % are return migrants to the sameregion/division. Among whites originating in the South, less than half of 1 % of eligiblefamilies are return migrants to the same county of origin, 2 % are return migrants to thesame state, and 4 % are return migrants to the same region/division.

The bottom row of the table shows the same figures with only families originating inthe South and exiting their region/division used as the denominator. Among blackfamilies in this group, 4 % are return migrants to the same county, 8 % are returnmigrants to the same state, and 9 % are return migrants to the same region/division. Forwhites, 1 % of those who left their origin region/division in the South are returnmigrants to their county of origin, 6 % are return migrants to their state of origin,and 14 % are return migrants to their region/division of origin.

Over the four generations of data available in the PSID, the results indicate thatblacks who left the South are less likely to have returned to the South than whites,although they are slightly more likely than whites to have returned to theirfamilies’ specific county of origin. This latter finding could help to explain

Table 5 The prevalence of return migration to origin counties, states, and region/divisions, respectively, forall blacks and whites and for families originating in the South

% Who LeftOrigin Region/Division andReturned toOrigin County

% Who LeftOrigin Region/Division andReturned toOrigin State

% Who LeftOrigin Region/Division andReturned toOrigin Region/Division

Blacks Whites Blacks Whites Blacks Whites

Full Sample (n = 4,551) 1 0* 3 1† 3 3

Families Who Left Origin Region/Division (n = 1,164) 4 1* 8 6 9 11

All Families Who Originated in South (n = 2,758) 1 0* 3 2 3 4

Families Who Originated in South and Left OriginRegion/Division (n = 782)

4 1* 8 6 9 14

Notes: Sample size includes families with nonmissing data in all four generations but is not limited to includeonly the firstborn children of the Generation 2 households. All figures are weighted using individual weights.Tests for significant differences between blacks and whites are indicated as follows:†p < .10; *p < .05

224 P. Sharkey

the narrative of blacks’ returning “home” to the specific counties where theirfamilies lived in prior generations.

Table 6 shows results from analyses of return migration that control for demographicand economic characteristics measured over the course of the focal cohort’s childhoodyears. The first three specifications in the table include a measure of whether the familyoriginated in the South as well as an interaction term (Originated in South × Black) thatallows for a comparison of the prevalence of return migration for black families thatoriginated in the South compared with white families that originated in the South. Thesecond set of three specifications includes a different interaction term that allows for analternative comparison. These specifications include a dichotomous indicator for raceand the same interaction term (Originated in South × Black), but here the interactionallows for a comparison of the prevalence of return migration for black families thatoriginated in the South with black families that originated outside the South.

Focusing first on family characteristics other than race, a few characteristics arestrongly associated with return migration to the origin county, state, or region/division.Children from families in which the household head is more stably employed are morelikely to have undertaken return migration, but this finding is countered by theadditional finding that children whose family members received welfare also are morelikely to have undertaken return migration in several of the specifications. The strongassociation between welfare receipt and return migration to the county of originsuggests that one reason for migration back to a family’s origin county may be toreceive familial support.

More relevant to the focus of the article are the terms capturing differences betweenblacks and whites originating inside and outside the South. The first column of resultsindicates that families originating in the South are no more likely than those outside theSouth to have returned to the specific county in which their families originated, and theinteraction term indicates that blacks originating in the South are 2 percentage pointsmore likely than whites originating in the South to have returned to their families’county of origin. Considering return migration to the families’ origin state, neither themain effect of originating in the South nor the interaction term is significantly differentfrom zero. The third column of results indicates that families originating in the Southare 7 percentage points more likely than families originating outside the South to haveundertaken return migration to the region/origin in which the family began; however,the interaction term indicates that blacks originating in the South are 6 percentagepoints less likely than whites to have undertaken this form of return migration.

The second set of specifications allows for a comparison of return migration amongblack families that originate within the South versus outside the South. None of theinteraction terms are statistically significant in these specifications because the numberof black families that lived outside of the South in Generation 1 is minimal. Still, thefindings are revealing. Results show that black families originating outside the southare more likely than white families to have undertaken return migration, but blackfamilies originating inside the South are less likely to have undertaken return migrationthan black families originating outside the South.

Although none of these findings are statistically significant, the finding that blackfamilies originating outside of the South actually have higher levels of return migrationthan black families originating within the South suggests that the narrative of blackreturn migration to the South is overstated. Black families originating in the South are


Table 6 Multivariate models of return migration to origin counties, states, and region/divisions, respectively,among black and white families who left their origin region/divisions

Probability of Return Migration to County, State, or Region/DivisionAmong Families Who Leave Origin Region/Division (n = 1,154)

Comparison of Blacks andWhites Originating in theSouth

Comparison of Blacks Originatingin the South Versus Outside theSouth

County StateRegion/Division County State

Region/Division

Family Originated in South –0.003 0.020 0.067*

(0.006) (0.019) (0.028)

Black 0.154 0.189 0.088

(0.100) (0.115) (0.125)

Originated in South × Black 0.022† 0.007 –0.063† –0.130 –0.168 –0.114

(0.013) (0.027) (0.033) (0.102) (0.116) (0.124)

Head’s Years of Schooling –0.002 0.002 0.015* –0.002 0.001 0.012†

(0.002) (0.005) (0.006) (0.002) (0.005) (0.006)

Head’s Annual HoursWorked (250–1,999)

0.057 0.086* 0.122* 0.060 0.091* 0.127**

(0.038) (0.041) (0.047) (0.037) (0.040) (0.047)

Head’s Annual HoursWorked (2,000+)

0.059 0.098* 0.154** 0.062 0.103* 0.160**

(0.038) (0.047) (0.054) (0.038) (0.046) (0.054)

Head’s Age –0.006 –0.015* –0.009 –0.007 –0.015* –0.008

(0.004) (0.007) (0.009) (0.004) (0.007) (0.009)

Head’s Age, Squared 0.000 0.000* 0.000 0.000 0.000* 0.000

(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)

Child’s Age 0.001 0.004 0.016 0.001 0.004 0.018

(0.011) (0.026) (0.031) (0.011) (0.026) (0.031)

Child’s Age, Squared –0.000 –0.000 –0.000 –0.000 –0.000 –0.000

(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)

Child Is Male –0.006 –0.017 –0.014 –0.006 –0.018 –0.016

(0.007) (0.017) (0.022) (0.007) (0.017) (0.022)

Family Income (log) 0.031 0.024 –0.037 0.032 0.021 –0.047

(0.021) (0.029) (0.036) (0.021) (0.029) (0.035)

Family Owns Home –0.004 –0.020 –0.023 –0.004 –0.017 –0.015

(0.014) (0.029) (0.041) (0.013) (0.029) (0.041)

Family Member Receives Welfare 0.108* 0.089 0.146† 0.102* 0.076 0.125

(0.048) (0.061) (0.077) (0.048) (0.062) (0.079)

Head Is Married –0.004 –0.004 0.027 –0.004 –0.002 0.031

(0.010) (0.021) (0.028) (0.010) (0.021) (0.028)

Number of Children in Family –0.002 –0.004 –0.008 –0.002 –0.004 –0.007

(0.002) (0.006) (0.007) (0.002) (0.006) (0.007)

Notes: Standard errors are shown in parentheses. Sample size includes families with nonmissing state andcounty data in all four generations but is not limited to include only the firstborn children of the Generation 2households. All figures are weighted using individual weights.†p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01

226 P. Sharkey

slightly more likely than white families to have returned to the specific county in whichtheir families originated, but they are less likely to have returned to their origin region/division. In addition, black families originating in the South are less likely than blackfamilies originating outside the South to have undertaken return migration to thecounty, state, or region/division in which the family originated.

Discussion

This article provides new data and a new perspective on the way that families andplaces are linked together through four generations of geographic migration. Theanalysis is based on a cohort of black and white Americans born from the early1950s through the early 1980s. Beginning with the childhood geographic locations ofindividuals in this cohort, the analysis looks backward in time to document themigration patterns of the two prior generations, and forward in time to track this cohortfrom childhood into adulthood. Putting all of this information together allows for a lookat the geographic locations of four consecutive generations of black and whiteAmerican families.

The unique nature of the data comes with important limitations. Measures ofgeographic location are not consistent across all four generations, and measurementerror is more likely in the locations of Generations 1 and 2. Because the analysis isorganized around generations, and not periods, the patterns cannot be compareddirectly to prior historical research on the demography of black and white migrationover the past century. Despite the differences in perspective, there is strong conver-gence between the patterns of migration documented in this analysis and the patternsdocumented in the large empirical literature on the Great Migration. Research on theGreat Migration has split the demographic phenomenon into two periods. The firstperiod occurred in the first three decades of the twentieth century and was characterizedby black migration out of the South and into the cities of the Northeast and Midwest.The second period, which ran from the 1940s through the 1960s, was characterized bya continuation of migration into the Northeast and Midwest and a new pathway ofmigration to the West and Northwest (Tolnay 2003). The generational flows ofmigration described in this article correspond closely. From Generation 1 to 2, theresults in Table 2 and the map of black migration flows in Fig. 1a show a clear patternof migration northward and eastward. From Generation 2 to 3, this migration flowintensified, and a new flow emerged to the West. The structured migration ofblack Americans northward and westward is no longer present from Generation3 to 4, a finding that is consistent with the literature on the timing of the endof the Great Migration.

It is reassuring that the analysis of migration flows from an intergenerationalnetwork perspective produces patterns that are consistent with the literature on migra-tion in different periods. The generational perspective, however, provides additionalinsights that cannot be gleaned from studies that focus on shifts in migration over time.Most notably, the generational perspective allows for evidence on the degree to whichfamily members left and returned to places in which their parents or grandparents wereraised. Despite the attention given to the new stream of black migration to the South,figures showing migration over four generations indicate that return migration has been


rare among both blacks and whites and that only return migration to the specific countyof origin is slightly more common among blacks than whites. Overall, there is noevidence indicating that black Americans whose families originated in the South havebeen disproportionately likely to migrate back to their families’ region of origin. Blackfamilies from the South are less likely than white families from the South to havereturned to the region/division in which the family originated, and black families fromthe South are less likely than black families outside the South to have undertaken anyform of return migration (although the differences are not statistically significant).

These results do not undermine or contradict the demographic and qualitativeliterature on the new stream of black migration southward, but they do provide anew perspective on the scale of this migration stream. The findings in this articleconfirm other research showing that after multiple generations in which blackAmericans were steadily moving out of the South, this stream of migration endedand a new stream of migration into the South emerged. These developments areimportant for understanding the demography of black migration (Frey 2004), and theyare important for understanding the connections between black family life, culturalidentity, and geography (Stack 1996). For instance, one could argue that the greaterprevalence of black Americans’ return migration to the specific southern counties inwhich their ancestors lived is consistent with Stack’s (1996) findings about theimportance of familial connections in understanding this new migration stream.

However, the analyses in this article suggest that the scale of the new stream of blackmigration into the South is not particularly large and may not represent the mostimportant recent change in the demography of black migration. A more pronouncedchange in black migration has been the new geographic immobility of black Americansin the most recent generation. Black Americans in the most recent generation are morelikely than their parents and more likely than whites in the same generation to remain inplace from one generation to the next. Perhaps the most notable finding in the analysisis that the destinations of previous generations of black Americans have been trans-mitted to the most recent generation.

The transmission of places to the current generation of black Americans carries aunique set of implications for black families and for scholarly understanding of racialinequality more broadly. To understand the implications of this new geographicimmobility, it is important to go beyond the finding that black children have remainedtied to places over time and to consider the trajectories of the places that they haveinherited. A large portion of black children in the cohort born from the mid-1950sthrough the mid-1980s have remained tied to urban areas in the Northeast and Midwestthat have fared poorly in the post–Civil Rights era. As documented in an extensiveliterature from urban sociology, the northern cities that were passed on to the currentgeneration of black Americans experienced a set of changes since the 1970s (and earlierin some cases), including economic transformation, demographic change, and shifts inpublic investment (Sharkey 2013; Sugrue 1996; Wilson 1987). As a consequence,much of the urban history of the post–Civil Rights period in the Northeast and Midwestcan be characterized by the erosion of the economic opportunity that drew familiesfrom the South, the erosion of the institutions that sustained urban communitiesprior to the 1970s, and the erosion of the federal investment necessary to allowurban communities to withstand the economic and social transformations of thepost–Civil Rights period.

228 P. Sharkey

The urban history of northern cities since the 1970s adds important contextto the patterns documented in this article. A common argument in the literatureon racial inequality is that the economic advances made by black Americans inthe first three quarters of the twentieth century are at least partly attributable toblacks’ willingness to make long-distance moves to seek out new economicopportunities outside the South (Smith and Welch 1989; but see Eichenlaubet al. 2010). The corollary to this argument is that low levels of long-rangegeographic migration might limit a group’s capacity to exit areas where oppor-tunity is declining and to enter regions or cities that offer greater economicopportunities. From this perspective, the relatively low level of geographicmobility in the most recent generation of black Americans may be viewed asa factor contributing to persistent racial inequality (Sharkey 2013).

If black Americans in the most recent generation have been less able or lesseager to make long-distance moves that lead them to new places, the patternsdescribed in this article provoke a consideration of why this is the case.Analyses that control for a range of family social and economic characteristicsindicate that these dimensions of family background do not account for racialdifferences in the prevalence of remaining in place from one generation to thenext. The multigenerational perspective presented here also makes clear that anyvalid explanation cannot focus on fixed or stable features of black families,black culture, or black residential preferences to explain migration patterns;such an explanation is inconsistent with the empirical finding showing thatprevious generations of black Americans were more likely than whites toundertake long-range geographic migration. An explanation of the patternsdocumented in this article requires an explanation of change across generations.

This article stops short of providing such an explanation, as the empirical focus ofthis article is on description—description of migration patterns over long periods oftime, racial differences in migration patterns in each generation, and the strength offamilies’ ties to places across four generations. The hope is that this descriptive analysisof migration patterns will provide a launching point for a second stage of inquiry, onethat utilizes additional methods and data and one that is focused not only on descriptionbut also on explanation.

Acknowledgments This project was supported with a grant from the UC-Davis Poverty Research Center. Ireceived helpful comments from participants in the UC-Davis Poverty Research Center Small GrantsConference, and in particular from Abigail Wozniak. I would also like to thank Manish Nag, who offeredextensive assistance in the construction of maps found in the text, which were developed using the SonomaNetwork Mapping Software that he developed.

References

Adelman, R. M., Morett, C., & Tolnay, S. E. (2000). Homeward bound: The return migration of southern-bornblack women, 1940 to 1990. Sociological Spectrum, 20, 433–463.

Ballard, A. (1984).One more day’s journey: The story of a family and a people. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.Becketti, S., Gould, W., Lillard, L., & Welch, F. (1988). The Panel Study of Income Dynamics after fourteen

years: An evaluation. Journal of Labor Economics, 6, 472–492.Berlin, I. (2010). The making of African America: The four Great Migrations. New York, NY: Penguin.


Bilefsky, D. (2011, June 21). For new life, blacks in city head to South. The New York Times. Retrieved fromhttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/nyregion/many-black-new-yorkers-are-moving-to-the-south.html?pagewanted=all

Brown, C. (1996). Notes on the “SEO” or “census” component of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics(Technical Series Paper No. 96-03). Ann Arbor: Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research,University of Michigan.

Copeland, L. (2011, July 1). Blacks return to southern roots. USA Today. Retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2011-06-30-black-south-census-migration_n.htm

Cromartie, J., & Stack, C. B. (1989). Reinterpretation of black return and non-return migration to the South.Rural Sociology, 39, 514–528.

Curtis, M. C. (2011). Why we’re moving back South. The Root. Retrieved from http://www.theroot.com/views/going-home-south?page=0,1

Eichenlaub, S. C., Tolnay, S. E., & Alexander, J. T. (2010). Moving out but not up. American SociologicalReview, 75, 101–125.

Falk, W. W., Hunt, L. L., & Hunt, M. O. (2004). Return migrations of African Americans to the South:Reclaiming a land of promise, going home, or both? Rural Sociology, 69, 490–509.

Fitzgerald, J., Gottschalk, P., & Moffitt, R. (1998a). An analysis of sample attrition in panel data: TheMichigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Journal of Human Resources, 33, 251–299.

Fitzgerald, J., Gottschalk, P., &Moffitt, R. (1998b). An analysis of the impact of sample attrition on the secondgeneration of respondents in the Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Journal of HumanResources, 33, 300–344.

Fligstein, N. (1981). Going North: Migration of blacks and whites from the South, 1900–1950. New York,NY: Academic Press.

Frey, W. H. (2004). The new great migration: Black Americans’ return to the South, 1965–2000 (Report).Washington, DC: Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, The Brookings Institution.

Hill, M. S., & Morgan, J. N. (1992). The Panel Study of Income Dynamics: A user’s guide. Newbury Park,CA: Sage Publications.

Hunt, L. L., Hunt, M. O., & Falk, W. W. (2008). Who is headed South? U.S. migration trends in black andwhite, 1970–2000. Social Forces, 87, 95–119.

Lemann, N. (1991). The promised land: The Great Migration and how it changed America. New York, NY:Knopf.

Long, L. (1988). Migration and residential mobility in the United States. New York, NY: Russell Sage.Long, L. H., & Hansen, K. A. (1975). Trends in recent return migration to the South. Demography, 12, 601–

614.MacDonald, J., & MacDonald, L. (1964). Chain migration, ethnic neighborhood formation and social

networks. The Millbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 42, 82–97.Marks, C. (1989). Farewell–we’re good and gone: The Great Black Migration. Bloomington, IN: Indiana

University Press.Massey, D. S. (1990). Social structure, household strategies, and the cumulative causation of migration.

Population Index, 56, 3–26.Massey, D. S., Arango, J., Hugo, G., Kouaouci, A., Pellegrino, A., & Taylor, E. (1993). Theories of

international migration: A review and appraisal. Population and Development Review, 19, 431–466.Nag, M. (2009). Mapping networks: A new method for integrating spatial and network data. Unpublished

manuscript, Department of Sociology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.Price-Spratlen, T. (1999). Livin’ for the city: African American ethnogenesis and Depression era migration.

Demography, 36, 553–568.Price-Spratlen, T. (2008). Urban destination selection among African Americans during the 1950s Great

Migration. Social Science History, 32, 437–469.Robinson, I. (1986). African-Americans move back to the South. American Demographics, 8, 40–43.Ruggles, S., Alexander, J. T., Genadek, K., Goeken, R., Schroeder, M. B., & Sobek, X. (2010). Integrated

Public Use Microdata Series: Version 5.0 [Machine-readable database]. Minneapolis, MN: University ofMinnesota.

Sharkey, P. (2013). Stuck in place: Urban neighborhoods and the end of progress toward racial equality.Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Smith, J. P., & Welch, F. R. (1989). Black economic progress after Myrdal. Journal of Economic Literature,27, 519–564.

Stack, C. B. (1996). Call to home: African-Americans reclaim the rural South. New York, NY: Basic Books.Sugrue, T. J. (1996). The origins of the urban crisis: Race and inequality in post-war Detroit. Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press.

230 P. Sharkey

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/nyregion/many-black-new-yorkers-are-moving-to-the-south.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/nyregion/many-black-new-yorkers-are-moving-to-the-south.html?pagewanted=all

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2011-06-30-black-south-census-migration_n.htm

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2011-06-30-black-south-census-migration_n.htm

http://www.theroot.com/views/going-home-south?page=0,1

http://www.theroot.com/views/going-home-south?page=0,1

Tilly, C. (1968). Race and migration to the American city. In J. Q. Wilson (Ed.), The metropolitan enigma:Inquiries into the nature and dimensions of America’s urban crisis (pp. 135–157). Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press.

Tolnay, S. E. (2003). The African American “Great Migration” and beyond. Annual Review of Sociology, 29,209–232.

Tolnay, S. E., & Beck, E. M. (1992). Racial violence and black migration in the South, 1910 to 1930.American Sociological Review, 57, 103–116.

Tolnay, S. E., White, K. C., Crowder, K. D., & Adelman, R. M. (2005). Distances traveled during the “GreatMigration”: An analysis of racial differences among male migrants. Social Science History, 29, 523–548.

Wilkerson, I. (2010). The warmth of other suns: The epic story of America’s Great Migration. New York, NY:Random House.

Wilson, W. J. (1987). The truly disadvantaged. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.


Geographic Migration of Black and White Families Over Four ......migration” that extends beyond individual lifetimes and reaches across generations of family members. Three research

Documents