Segregation and mortality over time and space.

Few studies have been able to measure the evolution of segregation on health disparities or assess whether those disparities existed in rural communities prior to the Great Migration of African Americans to urban centers. We use a newly developed measure of historical racial residential segregation based on individual-level data. The measure exploits complete census manuscript files to identify the races of next-door neighbors.

Health, Human Capital, and African American Migration Before 1910.

Using both IPUMS and the Colored Troops Sample of the Civil War Union Army Data, I estimate the effects of literacy and health on the migration propensities of African Americans from 1870 to 1910. I find that literacy and health shocks were strong predictors of migration and the stock of health was not. There were differential selection propensities based on slave status-former slaves were less likely to migrate given a specific health shock than free blacks.