The major explanations for the narrowing in wage differentials between blacks and whites can be placed under four general categories: (1) more recent black cohorts begin their job experiences with larger initial stocks of human capital than previous cohorts; (2) the rural South to urban North migration has partly been superceded by Southern blacks…

Focusing on individual decisions, the study examined why the rural poor migrated to urban areas. Rural-to-urban migrants were those persons having lived in places of less than 25,000 population and currently residing in major cities. Southeastern blacks, Appalachian whites, and Southwestern Spanish Americans were interviewed in two…