Sex-specific U.S. immigration from Europe, 1870-1910: a panel-data study of rates and composition

This paper develops and estimates models of sex-specific emigration and of the sex composition of emigration from 12 European source countries to the U.S. for the period 1870-1910. The models are based on the distinction between economic migrants (males and single females) and tied migrants (females) and are estimated with panel data, including data that relate to the occupational/industrial structure of male and female economic activity in source countries. Hausman-Taylor instrumental variable estimates suggest that although both males and females responded to labor-market signals, males were more responsive than females to per capita GDP differences. However, compared to the rest of Europe, Ireland and Scandinavia were the sources of relatively many young, single male and female migrants, who responded strongly to gaps in economic opportunity. In fact, much of the European response to such gaps appears to be due to migrants from Ireland and Scandinavia. Ceteris paribus, females tended to originate in English-speaking countries and countries that were agriculturally oriented. Service jobs in source countries discouraged females relative to males from migrating. Males tended to follow recent migrants more than females, but females responded more to long-term influences as measured by stocks of migrants from their source countries who had previously settled in the U.S. Countries with high birth rates had relatively less female emigration, whereas those with high rates of natural increase 20 years earlier experienced relatively more male emigration.