FAMILY AND SEX-SPECIFIC U.S. IMMIGRATION FROM EUROPE, : A PANEL DATA STUDY OF RATES AND COMPOSITION by Michael J. Greenwood University of Colorado at Boulder

Research Questions Why were historical U.S. immigrant flows from certain countries at certain times oriented relatively more toward males, whereas those from other countries were oriented relatively less in this way? In short, why did males and females respond differently to economic differentials and other factors and why did the sex composition of U.S. immigration differ across source countries and over time in the observed ways? Moreover, did intact-family migrants respond differently to various incentives than lone male migrants who moved as part of a family strategy? And did single male and female migrants respond differently than those who were part of an intact family or those who moved in connection with a family strategy? “Sex composition” refers to the fraction of immigrants who were female (and male).

OUTLINE 1. Introduction 2. Motivation 3. Theoretical rationale 4. Data a. U.S. immigration data b. Source-country characteristics 5. Methodology for dealing with composition 6. Econometric approach 7. Empirical findings 8. Summary and conclusions

Why study sex differentials in migration? 1. Virtually every study of historical U.S. immigration implicitly assumes that all the migrants were destined to join the labor force— clearly an inappropriate assumption where females are concerned. (No distinction is made regarding who was migrating.) 2. In part because females had lower LFPRs and lower earnings than their male counterparts, they made a lesser contribution to the economy through formal labor markets.

3. Segmented labor markets could have driven females into lower-paying (perhaps service) occupations and/or could have discouraged them from participating in the labor force. In either case their contributions to GDP through formal channels would be reduced. 4. The child-bearing capacity of female migrants increases the potential for growth of the second-generation immigrant population in the destination.

5. Females have longer life expectancy than males. (Thus, societal costs and benefits differ for males and females toward the end of their life cycles.) 6. Various types of costs (e.g., crime) are more strongly associated with males. 7. Return migration rates were considerably lower for females.

Donna Gabaccia, “Women of the Mass Migrations: From Minority to Majority, ” “Historical studies of international female migration scarcely exist” (1996, p.91). United Nations. The Migration of Women: Methodological Issues in the Measurement and Analysis of Internal and International Migration laments “the neglect of research on women’s migration” (1994, p. xv).

Background Literature Somewhere between few and no analytical studies specifically on U.S. immigration of males versus females or of females alone, but many on overall U.S. immigration. Some descriptive/interpretative studies beginning with Ravenstein (1885). Much tabular material that identifies the sex of migrants. Ravenstein’s seventh “law” of migration is that “females are migratory than males” (p. 199).

Dorothy Swain Thomas, in her Research Memorandum on Migration Differentials (1938) devotes a chapter to “sex differentials.” She was concerned with internal migration and not international migration and concluded with the following question: “What opportunities, social and economic, are offered young men and young women migrants in what types of cities?... How far is migration an adjustment to these opportunities?” (p ).

Tyree and Donato (1986), regarding contemporary U.S. immigration, write that “the majority of immigrant women do not move alone, but are married and move with their husbands” (p. 40).

TABLE A PERCENTAGES OF 1913 MALE AND FEMALE U.S. IMMIGRANTS 14 TO 44 WHO WERE SINGLE, BY NATIONALITY Nationality Male (%)Female (%) Dutch and Flemish English French German Irish Italian Portuguese Scandinavian Spanish Source: Compiled from data in the Annual Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration, 1913,

Conceptually, I distinguish three types of migrants: 1. intact-family migrants, who presumably were half male and half female; 2. other family migrants, some of whom (presumably primarily adult males) moved as part of a family-migration strategy with an initial intention of returning home at some future date and some of whom (presumably primarily adult females and children) moved to join a spouse who migrated earlier; and 3. single, independent migrants, who moved with the intention of starting a new life in the U.S. or perhaps with the initial intention of returning home at a later date.

and (1) (2) and (3) (4)

For 1913 and 1914 the values of w/t, m/t, s/t, ws/s, and ms/s are known. Thus, if different assumptions are made regarding the values of wof / of and mof / of (e.g., 0.2 and 0.8, respectively), equations (3) and (4) can be solved for the values of if/t and of/t, and this computation can be done for each source country. Consider Equations (3) and (4). If we assume that intact families (if) are half male and half female, then Moreover,

Based on European emigration statistics, Hatton and Williamson (1998) report regarding the Irish that “Most of the emigrants were single. The percentage of all emigrants aged 15 and over who were married or widowed amounted to only 10 to 15 percent of the total” (p. 85); and regarding the Scandinavians that “They were mainly young, 60 percent falling in the age group; they were mainly male, about three fifths; and they were mainly single, about four fifths” (p. 68).

Two observations: 1.males were more likely to be labor-force participants than females, so males were more likely to migrate based on their own economic incentives, and 2. nevertheless, females and children were important contributors to the family enterprise in the U.S., so family migration decisions must be studied as well as those of single, unattached males and females.

Hypotheses Because males were more likely than females to participate in formal labor markets in both their source countries and the U.S., males should have been more responsive to economic incentives than females. Those factors that raised the probability that females were part of the pool of potential economic migrants also should have raised the proportion of the total flow that was female.

These hypotheses are going to direct me to certain types of data (variables). Variables that relate to differential economic opportunity should be of particular importance in influencing the ratio of economic to tied migrants. Variables pertinent to the labor force participation of females in source countries should serve to place females in the pool of potential economic migrants to the U.S. Variables relating to the costs of migration may differ systematically for the two types of migrants.

Data Should the study use U.S. immigration data or emigration data from various European source countries? Answer: U.S. data. 1.U.S. data have the advantage of being more or less consistent in terms of the definition (and measurement) of an immigrant. 2.European source countries did not systematically report annual emigration statistics, by sex, for very many countries of destination. 3.I know English.

Countries that form the data base: 1. Belgium 2. Denmark 3. France 4. Germany 5. Ireland 6. Italy 7. Netherlands 8. Norway 9. Portugal 10. Spain 11. Sweden 12. Great Britain (England, Scotland, Wales)

Period Studied —observations: 41 x 12 = 492 a —20 x 12 = 240 b —21 x 12 = 252

Historical U.S. statistics relating to the sex of immigrants are reported in two ways: 1. by country of origin (for the 12 countries), and 2. by “race or people” (for only 9 nationalities). Example for 1910: immigration from Ireland: 29,855 immigration of the Irish: 38,382 immigration from England, Scotland, and Wales: 68,941 immigration of the English, Scottish, Welsh: 80,354

Problems with migration data (i.e., dependent variables) a. For the United Kingdom for 1870 and and 1871, respectively, 18.0% of all males (17,084) and 11.1% of all males (9,128), as well as 18.4% of all females (12,104) and 11.4% of all females (6,914), did not report their origin as England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. b. Immigrant sex by country of origin was not reported for 1893, 1894, and 1895.

TABLE B SEX COMPOSITION OF U.S. IMMIGRATION, PeriodSex RatioPeriodSex Ratio a a a a a a a a a a b b b b b bc def ef Notes: a.Source: Ferenczi and Willcox (1929), United States Table VII. b.Source: Houstoun, Kramer, and Barrett (1984), Table A-1. c.Excludes d.Source: U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (1991), Table 11. e.Excludes persons legalized under provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of f.Source: U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (2002), Table 12.

Sex ratio of immigration from Europe 1914: (268.6 for Italy) 1918: (46.7 for Italy) 1921: (186.1 for Italy) 1922: : 85.9 (52.5 for Italy)

Data References Ferenczi, Ime and Walter F. Willcox. International Migrations. Volume I: Statistics. New York: NBER, Reports of the Immigration Commission. Statistical Review of immigration : Distribution of Immigrants Senate Documents of the 61 st Congress, 3 rd Session, Volume 20, 1911.

Problems with Independent Variables The major issue here is that I had to develop annual time- series data for each country and each period. This was accomplished by Interpolation and Extrapolation, which included (for birth and death rates for many countries) estimating models to reveal “latent” variables. Note: Such procedures suppress year-to-year fluctuations in certain variables for certain time spans, but they reflect long term trends and capture cross-sectional differences, which are far greater for any given year than any year-to-year fluctuations for any given country.

Greenwood, Michael J., John M. McDowell, and Donald M. Waldman, “A Model of the Skill Composition of US Immigration,” Applied Economics, Greenwood, Michael J., and John M. McDowell, Legal U.S. Immigration: Influences on Gender, Age, and Skill Composition. Kalamazoo: W.E. UPJOHN Institute for Employment Research, Greenwood, Michael J., John M. McDowell, and Matt Wierman, “Source- Country Social Programs and the Age Composition of Legal US immigrants,” Journal of Public Economics, Greenwood, Michael J., “Modeling the Age and Age Composition of Late 19 th Century U.S. Immigrants from Europe,” Explorations in Economic History, 2007.

Let i represent source country, j independent variable, t year, and s sex. The share of immigration of a given type is the dependent variable and may be expressed in the following way, where Sist represents the share of total U.S. immigration from country i, of sex s, during year t:

Econometric Strategy For each regression, the hypothesis that the individual effects are correlated with the regressors (i.e., random effects) is tested. In every case, this hypothesis (and thus random effects) is rejected. For each regression, I also test the exogeneity of the HT instruments.

Econometric Procedures Hausman-Taylor Instrumental Variable estimators: Account for unobserved country-specific effects Account for the correlation (endogeneity) between certain variables of the model and unobserved country-specific effects Allow the estimation of coefficients on variables that are temporally invariant (like distance)

M ist (or S ist ) = β i + δ t + λ 1s v 1ist + λ 2s v 2ist + λ 3s v 3ist + є ist, (1) where M ist = the rate of migration of sex group s from country i to the U.S. in year t; S ist = the share of i’s migration to the U.S. in year t that was sex s; β i = fixed country effects; δ t = fixed time effects; v 1ist = a vector of variables that reflects the differential advantage between the U.S. and country i; v 2ist = a vector of variables that reflects relative migration costs, including both direct entry costs and skill transferability costs associated with moving from i to the U.S.; v 3ist = a vector of control variables; λ as = vectors of unknown parameters for sex s, for a = 1,…,3; and є ist = random errors.

M ist = β i + δ t + αx it + γz i + є ist,i=1,…,12; t=1,…,41,(2) where M ist is migration of sex s from country i in year t. Next we partition the set of explanatory variables into two groups, paying close attention to the model’s time-invariant variables, distance, the dummy variable for English-speaking countries, and the dummy variable for countries in Southern Europe: [ x it | z i ] where x it is a Kx1 vector of variables that measures characteristics of country i in period t and z i is a Gx1 vector of time-invariant variables. (I drop the s subscript because each sex class has the same set of right-hand side variables.) In (3), α and γ are vectors of unknown parameters, є ist is a random disturbance, and the vectors β i and δ t are unobserved country-specific and time- specific variables, respectively.

Summary and Conclusions 1.Historically, both males and females responded to economic incentives. However, males responded more strongly in the sense that sex composition for low-income countries was oriented relatively more toward males, other factors held constant. 2.The importance of the size of the labor-force-entry cohorts on subsequent international migration found in earlier historical studies is due to males. 3.Males were more likely than females to follow recent migrants, but females were more likely to move in response to larger stocks of migrants from their home countries, perhaps reflecting the importance of marriage markets for females. 4.High source-country birth rates discouraged female migration more that male migration and apparently discouraged family migration.

5. Distance from the U.S. was never much of a factor in migration to the U.S. 6. Females were more likely to originate in Ireland or England. 7. Females relative to males were more likely to come from countries with relatively much agricultural orientation. 8. Service-sector jobs in source countries discouraged females relative to males from migrating 9. Both male and female migrants from Latin Europe were less responsive to economic incentives than those from the rest of Europe—a finding unlike the earlier finding of Hatton and Williamson.

10.However, after about 1890, young, unmarried males and females from Ireland and Scandinavia responded strongly to economic incentives. Indeed, they responded more strongly than males and females from elsewhere in Europe. During the period of the “new immigration,” much of the European response to economic incentives appears to have been due to the Irish and Scandinavians. 11. Single, unattached males were more responsive to economic incentives than males who moved as part of a family migration strategy, and those who moved as part of a family strategy were in turn more responsive than those who moved in an intact family.

In general, this study demonstrates that both males and females were responsive to labor-market signals, but that males were more responsive. The missing link is relative wages of females compared to males. The only source of such data is found in the reports of the Dillingham Commission.

TABLE 12 AVERAGE WEEKLY EARNINGS IN THE U.S. OF MALE AND FEMALE EMPLOYEES 18 YEARS OF AGE AND OVER, BY COUNTRY OF BIRTH, EARLY 1900S Country MalesFemales Immig relative earnings No. Reporting Wk. earnings Imm/Nativ e No. Reporting Wk. earnings Imm/Nativ e Denmark377$ $ Ireland7, , Great Britain a 12, , Sweden3, Germany11, , France Belgium Netherlands1, Norway Italy b 13, , Spain ——— Portugal3, , Source: Reports of the Immigration Commission (1911), Tables 22 and 23. a. Weighted average of England, Scotland, and Wales. b. Weighted average of Northern Italy and Southern Italy.