
Competition in the Promised Land
Black Migrants in Northern Cities and Labor Markets
Leah Platt Boustan(Author)
Princeton University Press
Will be published approx. on 8. November 2016
Book
Hardback
216 pages
978-0-691-15087-1 (ISBN)
Description
From 1940 to 1970, nearly four million black migrants left the American rural South to settle in the industrial cities of the North and West. Competition in the Promised Land provides a comprehensive account of the long-lasting effects of the influx of black workers on labor markets and urban space in receiving areas. Traditionally, the Great Black Migration has been lauded as a path to general black economic progress. Leah Boustan challenges this view, arguing instead that the migration produced winners and losers within the black community. Boustan shows that migrants themselves gained tremendously, more than doubling their earnings by moving North. But these new arrivals competed with existing black workers, limiting black-white wage convergence in Northern labor markets and slowing black economic growth. Furthermore, many white households responded to the black migration by relocating to the suburbs. White flight was motivated not only by neighborhood racial change but also by the desire on the part of white residents to avoid participating in the local public services and fiscal obligations of increasingly diverse cities.
Employing historical census data and state-of-the-art econometric methods, Competition in the Promised Land revises our understanding of the Great Black Migration and its role in the transformation of American society.
Employing historical census data and state-of-the-art econometric methods, Competition in the Promised Land revises our understanding of the Great Black Migration and its role in the transformation of American society.
Reviews / Votes
"In her rich and technical account Competition in the Promised Land, Leah Boustan employs the tools of her trade--resourceful matching of data sets, rigorous modeling of labor phenomena, sweeping use of census figures--to analyze the demographics and economics of the Great Migration as a whole."--James Ryerson, New York Times Book ReviewMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New Jersey
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Trade binding
Illustrations
15 line illus. 14 tables.
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
454 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-691-15087-1 (9780691150871)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Leah Platt Boustan
Competition in the Promised Land
Black Migrants in Northern Cities and Labor Markets
E-Book
01/2017
1st Edition
Princeton University Press
from
€103.95
Available for download
Person
Leah Platt Boustan is professor of economics at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Content
Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 1 Black Migration from the South in Historical Context 14 2 Who Left the South and How Did They Fare? 39 3 Competition in Northern Labor Markets 65 4 Black Migration, White Flight 93 5 Motivations for White Flight: The Role of Fiscal/Political Interactions 122 Epilogue: Black Migration, Northern Cities, and Labor Markets after 1970 154 References 165 Index 187