Concepedia

Abstract

Recently published data on migration during the 1955-60 period reveal that, contrary to the popular stereotype, Negro in-migrants to a number of large cities, despite the presence of a socioeconomically depressed group of non-metropolitan origin, were not of lower average socioeconomic status than the resident Negro population. Indeed, in educational attainment Negro in-migrants to northern cities were equal to or slightly higher than the resident white population. Comparisons with limited data for earlier periods suggest that, as the Negro population has changed from a disadvantaged rural population to a metropolitan one of increasing socioeconomic levels, its patterns of migration have changed to become very much like those of the white population.