Racial Stratification and Socioeconomic Change in the American North and South

Recent change in the life-cycle processes of educational, occupational and earnings attainments is analyzed among black men native to the South, those native to the North, and black male migrants from the South to the North. Native northerners begin from relatively superior social origins and are better able to capitalize on these in the attainments of education and occupation than are either southern-born group. Between 1962 and 1973 the stratification experiences of the northern-born blacks rapidly converged with those of the white majority, so that by 1973 their system of stratificaion was more like that of whites than that of southern-born blacks. The processes of status allocation among the southern-born in 1973 were like those of northern natives in 1962. In this sense the integration of blacks into the majority stratification system began first and has proceeded furthest among blacks born in the North. Men living in the North, regardless of nativity, enjoy higher earnings than men living in the South. Migrants to the North earned about $400 more in 1972 than did comparable northern natives. This advantage is not accounted for by longer schooling or higher returns to education, occupation, or number of weeks worked, since the natives are equal or superior to the migrants in these factors. In all, changes over the recent decade have supported the internal differentiation of the black population, the development of more distinct socioeconomic strata, the greater stability of inequalities between generations of black men, and gains toward socioeconomic integration. These changes have been more characteristic of the North than of the South.