Gender and Racial Differences in Migration Behavior: Evidence from the Farm Exodus within and out of the U.S. South, 1900–1940

Using linked Census Tree records and archival sources, I explore the roles of race and gender in migrant selection and sorting during the exodus of single young women and men from U.S. Southern farms from 1900–1940. Female migration rates, influenced by changes in farm men’s marriageability, rose during the farm crisis of 1920–1940 and exceeded men’s by 1940. On- and off-farm discrimination by race and gender drove differences in migrant characteristics: out-of-South Black female migrants, but not within-South, were positively selected on education and family resources, while White women were positively selected across both destinations.