Abstract
The first-time emigration of nearly five million African Americans from the American South between 1940 and 1970 is among the most transformative demographic events in US history. Knowledge of the economic incentives and social mechanisms that drove this migration is incomplete and only infrequently considered in context with other historical US migrations. This study examines the economic and social assimilation of black migrants into the North in light of what is known about the assimilation of earlier European migrants to the region. Using a two-period mixed model with difference-in-differences estimators, I find evidence that even in the 1965-1970 period, as the migration wave waned, black Southern men and women experienced a positive income return to migration. This contrasts with findings in past literature on the period. Estimates also indicate the existence of a marriage premium for black Southern women who continue to work after marriage. Men do not show evidence of a general marriage premium, but there is consistent evidence of complementarity between migration and intermarriage with a Northern-born spouse. Women do not appear to experience this complementarity. Two candidate explanations, a social capital hypothesis and an unobserved input hypothesis, are proposed.