Relative Deprivation and Internal Migration in the United States: A Comparison of Black and White Men

Abstract

While the link between geographic and social mobility has long been a cornerstone of sociological approaches to migration, recent research has cast doubt on the economic returns to internal U.S. migration. Moreover, important racial disparities in migration patterns remain poorly understood. Drawing on data from the 2000 census, I reappraise the link between migration and social mobility by taking relative deprivation into consideration. I examine the association between migration, disaggregated by region of origin and destination, and absolute and relative earnings and occupational prestige, separately by race. Findings lend new insight into the theoretical and stratification implications of growing racial disparities in migration patterns; while both blacks and whites who move north-south generally average lower absolute incomes than their stationary northern peers, they enjoy significantly higher relative social position. Moreover, the relative "gains" to migration are substantially larger for blacks than whites. The opposite patterns obtain for south-north migration.