Migrants and Towns: Self-Selection and Occupational Attainment of Rural-Urban Migrants in Swedish History

1. Leaving for the City: Household-Level Determinants of Rural–Urban Migration in Sweden, 1870s–1930s

In this study, I analyze the determinants of rural-urban migration from the parental household in Sweden during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Focusing on the household conditions when migration decisions were made, I assess the influence of socio-economic background, household demographics, and the previous migration experience of siblings on the likelihood of individual migration to urban areas. I utilize a longitudinal sample of Swedish men and women born in rural areas during the late nineteenth century. The findings reveal a markedly positive socio-economic gradient in rural-urban migration among sons, whereas rural-urban migration of daughters was not selective. Moreover, evidence suggests that households minimized risks by sending children across different genders to urban areas. Sibling composition did, however, not influence rural-urban migration decisions.

2. Did Cities Increase Skills during Industrialization? Evidence from Rural-Urban Migration

The process of industrialization is typically associated with urbanization and a widening urban-rural skills gap. To what extent were these disparities driven by the direct impact on occupational attainment of living in an urban area or the result of the positive self-selection of more-skilled individuals into cities? In this paper, we leverage exceptional Swedish longitudinal data that allow us to estimate the impact of rural-urban migration on skill attainment during Sweden’s industrialization from the 1880s to the 1930s using a staggered treatment difference-in-difference estimator. We attribute roughly half of the gap in urban-rural skills to a direct impact of living in an urban area, whereas the other half is driven by self-selection into cities. A third of the direct impact of residing in cities is explained by a static effect, reflecting better initial matching, while the rest is the result of a dynamic effect as individuals upgrade their skills over time in urban areas. We conclude that cities had a substantial effect on skill development in Sweden around the turn of the nineteenth century that is likely to extend to other European and North American economies that were industrializing around the same time.

R&R at Journal of Urban Economics

Participating researchers:

• Jakob Molinder

3. Moving from Opportunity: Intergenerational Mobility of Rural-Urban Return Migrants in Sweden, 1890s–1940s

Using a novel longitudinal dataset, I study the intergenerational mobility of rural-urban migrants who returned to the countryside in due course. By examining pairs of brothers during the full migration lifecycle—from childhood until the age of 34—I estimate the effect of temporarily relocating to an urban area on occupational income over the mature working ages of 35–44 between the 1890s and the 1940s in Sweden. The results show that rural-urban migrants who returned to the countryside were not failures who did not succeed in improving their social position, but instead experienced substantial gains compared to their non-migrant brothers. These gains were similar to those of migrants who had permanently settled in urban areas. This pattern is attributed mostly to their capacities to leave farming and enter white-collar positions to a greater extent than non-migrants. The extent of temporary rural-urban migration, combined with the high levels of intergenerational mobility of return migrants in Sweden during the period examined, suggests that rural-urban migration to towns resulted in positive feedback effects for the countryside.

Published in The Economic History Review

4. Ascending from the Bottom Rung: The Labor Market Assimilation of Rural-Urban Migrants in Sweden, 1880–1910

This article examines the assimilation of rural-born people into the urban economy in the industrialization context, focusing on Sweden from 1880 to 1910—a time characterized by a notable shift in economic activity towards urban areas. I utilize individual-level data on three cohorts of rural-urban migrants linked across census records, allowing for an examination of their labor market assimilation across all Swedish towns. The main findings suggest that male migrants followed a Chiswick-like assimilation process, regardless of the size of the destination area. Initially, migrants displayed a sizeable negative gap in labor market outcomes compared to urban natives, which narrowed with the time spent in the urban area. Nevertheless, they never managed to close the gap over time. By contrast, female migrants displayed few signs of converging with female natives. The unsuccessful assimilation can mainly be attributed to the non-transferability of skills between the rural and urban sectors, and that most migrants were negatively selected on unobservable characteristics compared to the urban, native population.

R&R at Explorations in Economic History