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Refugees From Dust and Shrinking Land: Tracking the Dust Bowl Migrants

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  • Jason Long
  • Henry E. Siu

Abstract

We construct longitudinal data from the U.S. Census records to study migration patterns of those affected by the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Our focus is on the famous "Okie" migration of the Southern Great Plains. We find that migration rates were much higher in the Dust Bowl than elsewhere in the U.S. This difference is due to the fact that individuals who were typically unlikely to move (e.g., those with young children, those living in their birth state) were equally likely to move in the Dust Bowl. While this result of elevated mobility conforms to long-standing perceptions of the Dust Bowl, our other principal findings contradict conventional wisdom. First, relative to other occupations, farmers in the Dust Bowl were the least likely to move; this relationship between mobility and occupation was unique to that region. Second, out-migration rates from the Dust Bowl region were only slightly higher than they were in the 1920s. Hence, the depopulation of the Dust Bowl was due largely to a sharp drop in migration inflows. Dust Bowl migrants were no more likely to move to California than migrants from other parts of the U.S., or those from the same region ten years prior. In this sense, the westward push from the Dust Bowl to California was unexceptional. Finally, migration from the Dust Bowl was not associated with long-lasting negative labor market effects, and for farmers, the effects were positive.

Suggested Citation

  • Jason Long & Henry E. Siu, 2016. "Refugees From Dust and Shrinking Land: Tracking the Dust Bowl Migrants," NBER Working Papers 22108, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22108
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    Cited by:

    1. Katrin Millock & Cees Withagen, 2021. "Climate and Migration," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Anil Markandya & Dirk Rübbelke (ed.), CLIMATE AND DEVELOPMENT, chapter 10, pages 309-341, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Bryan A. Stuart & Evan J. Taylor, 2021. "Migration Networks and Location Decisions: Evidence from US Mass Migration," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 134-175, July.
    3. Shari Eli & Laura Salisbury & Allison Shertzer, 2016. "Migration Responses to Conflict: Evidence from the Border of the American Civil War," NBER Working Papers 22591, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Richard Hornbeck, 2020. "Dust Bowl Migrants: Identifying an Archetype," Working Papers 2020-120, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    5. Susan Sterett, 2021. "Domestic Structures, Misalignment, and Defining the Climate Displacement Problem," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-17, November.
    6. Ager, Philipp & Eriksson, Katherine & Hansen, Casper Worm & Lønstrup, Lars, 2020. "How the 1906 San Francisco earthquake shaped economic activity in the American West," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    7. Sichko, Christopher T., 2023. "Drought and Migration during the Great Depression," 2023 Annual Meeting, July 23-25, Washington D.C. 335558, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    8. Raphaelle G. Coulombe & Akhil Rao, 2023. "Fires and Local Labor Markets," Papers 2308.02739, arXiv.org.
    9. Spitzer, Yannay & Tortorici, Gaspare & Zimran, Ariell, 2020. "International Migration Responses to Natural Disasters: Evidence from Modern Europe’s Deadliest Earthquake," CEPR Discussion Papers 15008, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Boustan, Leah Platt & Kahn, Matthew E. & Rhode, Paul W. & Yanguas, Maria Lucia, 2020. "The effect of natural disasters on economic activity in US counties: A century of data," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    11. Yacine Boujija & Marie Connolly & Xavier St-Denis, 2023. "Take the train and climb the social ladder:The role of geographical mobility in the fight against inequality in Quebec," CIRANO Papers 2023pj-10, CIRANO.
    12. Gregory Howard, 2017. "The Migration Accelerator: Labor Mobility, Housing, and Aggregate Demand," 2017 Meeting Papers 563, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Collins, William J. & Zimran, Ariell, 2019. "The economic assimilation of Irish Famine migrants to the United States," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    14. Pleninger, Regina, 2022. "Impact of natural disasters on the income distribution," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    15. Andrew Muhammad & Christopher Sichko & Tore C. Olsson, 2024. "African Americans and federal land policy: Exploring the Homestead Acts of 1862 and 1866," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(1), pages 95-110, March.
    16. Sichko, Christopher, 2021. "Migrant Selection and Sorting during the Great American Drought," SocArXiv wm2p3, Center for Open Science.
    17. Ariell Zimran, 2022. "Internal Migration in the United States: Rates, Selection, and Destination Choice, 1850-1940," NBER Working Papers 30384, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Liu, Jhih-Yun, 2023. "The Dust Bowl and Occupational Persistence in Agriculture," 2023 Annual Meeting, July 23-25, Washington D.C. 335779, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    19. Yacine Boujija & Marie Connolly & Xavier St-Denis, 2023. "Mobilité géographique et transmission intergénérationnelle du revenu au Québec," CIRANO Project Reports 2023rp-11, CIRANO.
    20. Zachary Ward, 2019. "Internal Migration, Education and Upward Rank Mobility:Evidence from American History," CEH Discussion Papers 04, Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    21. Yannay Spitzer & Gaspare Tortorici & Ariell Zimran, 2020. "International Migration Responses to Modern Europe’s Most Destructive Earthquake: Messina and Reggio Calabria, 1908," NBER Working Papers 27506, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • N12 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
    • N32 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

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