Movement and Occupational Hierarchy of Working White Males: A Longitudinal Analysis of First and Second Generation European Immigrants in the Late 19th Century

Sula Sarkar, University of Minnesota
Rebecca J. Vick, University of Minnesota

Immigration was at its prime in the turn of the 20th century with more than 22 million European immigrants entering the United States from 1880 to 1900. How immigrants and their children fared in the United States labor market compared to native-born people has been an intriguing question to historical demographers. For our study we use the longitudinal 1880-1900 IPUMS linked representative sample of males to study relationships between spatial mobility and occupational mobility of first and second generation immigrants. We also investigate how first and second generation immigrants moved up the occupational hierarchy compared to the native born. Our initial analysis of first generation immigrants reveals that immigrants have moved up the occupational hierarchy, but their advance is in no way significantly more rapid than that of the native-born.