The Cream of the Crop? Inequality and Migrant Selectivity in Ireland during the Age of Mass Migration

PWP-CCPR-2016-043

Abstract

During the Age of Mass Migration (1850-1913), over 30 million people moved from Europe to North America. European policy-makers feared that migration would attract the “best and brightest” workers. I study the selectivity of migration from Ireland, the European country with the highest emigration rate, using a new longitudinal dataset of 300,000 migrants and non-migrants. I find that migrants tended to come from mid-status, farming families (“intermediately selected”). Yet migration within Ireland drew from both lower and higher status families. Children who were more likely to inherit valuable land were less likely to leave their home county.