The New Comparative Economic History
Essays in Honor of Jeffrey G. Williamson
Edited by Timothy J. Hatton, I(evin H. O'Rourke, and Alan M. Taylor
The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England Were Jews Political Refugees or Economic Migrants? 11 Assessing the Persecution Theory of Jewish Emigration, 1881-1914
Leah Platt Boustan
[11 1881, 4.1 Illillion Jews lived in the Russian empire. Over the next three decades, 1.5 million Russian Jews immigrated to the United States, and another 0.5 million left for other New World destinations, a mass migra tion surpassed in strength only by the Irish earlier in the century. Despite the intensity of Jewish migration, economic historians have paid lillle at tenlion to this episode. 1 This is clue, in pare to a lack of comparable data between Russia and the rest of continental Europe, but it also reilects the common belief that the exodus from Russia was a uniquely Jewish event and thus cannot be incorporated into a general model of migration as fac tor Bows. In this chapter, I argue that a confluence of demographic events, including population growth and internal migration from villages to larger cities, set the flow of Jewish migrants from Russia in motion. I fur ther demonstrate that the timing of Jewish migration, once it had begun in earnest, was influenced both by periodic religious violence and by busi ness cycles in the United States and Russia. Migration rates increased temporarily in the year after 11 documented persecution. In addition, by enlarging the slock of Jews living in the United States, many of whom joined emigrant aid societies or paid directly for their family's passage, temporary religious violence had modest long-run effects on the magni tude of the Jewish migration flow.
The Persecution Theory
Since the mid-eighteenth century) Jews in the Russian empire were forbid den to live outside the Pale of Settlement, an area that encompassed sections of Poland, Lithuania, Belorussia, and the Ukraine. The story of Jewish emigration usually begins with a full accounting of the pogroms, the anti-Jewish riots that swept through the Pale in the late nineteenth 1 268 leah Platt Boustan Were Jews Political Refugees or Economic Migrants? 269 and carly twentieth centuries. The first major riot took place in Odessa in 140.000 1905-1906: Revolution of 1905; 1871, during the relatively liberal reign of Alexander ILl Following Alex widespread pogroms ~ 120.000 ander's assassinalion ten years later, anti-Jewish violence again broke out in the south, this time in the city of Elizavctgrad, and spread northward 1903: Pogroms in 1914-1918; 100.000 . Bessarahia and Belorussia World War I for the next flvc months. J In the aftermath, the government of the new c .~ Tsar, Alexander III, publicly blamed the Jewish victims for instigating ~ 80.000 1891: Jews expelled ~ from Moscow ~24:U.S . the riots and responded by passing the "May Laws," which, among other :iil imposes m 60,000 . immigration restrictions, forbade Jews from settling in rural areas (Dubnow 1918, ~ 1381; c quotas Pogroms \ c 284-323; Rogger 1986, 58··70). in Kherson 4 40.000 1917; The next two decades were relatively quiet for the Jews of Russia. One "" (Ukraine) Russian cxccplion was the expulsion of .Jews from Moscow in 1891. Because .Jews 20,000 I revolution were technically not allowed to live in the capital, this event was more I \ symbolic than substantial, but the event stands out in the collective mem o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ory of the Russian Jewish experience. 5 A ne~v round of pogroms erupted 13Bl 1086 1091 1096 1901 1906 1911 1916 1921
in 1903 in the Bessarabian capital 0(' Kishinev. With the 1905 Revolution Figure 11.1 came widespread attacks, which affected some 650 Jewish communities in Anllual.lcwish migration from Russia to the Uniteu States, 1881-1924. Data li"OIl1 Joseph a single week, including the large urban centers of Odessa and Bialystok (1914). Fcrcnczi and WllIcox (1929: 1932). (Lambroza 1992, 226). Proponents of the persecution theory define the year 1881 as a turning cities with ill the Pale, and from entering the professions-these con point in both the oppression of Russia's Jews and in their migration straints, on their own, may not have been enough to spark migration. patterns. Ruppin (1934), an early .Jewish sociologist, asserted that where An apt analogy is the migration of African-Americans from the South, as before the pogroms 0(' 1881, "the individual Jew would make up which began in earnest only afler 1915 despite deeades of perseeution his mind to emigrate," perhaps because of "impossible economic con under the Jim Crow laws. 7 ditions," after that year, "a mighty stream of emigrants broke forth; Furthermore, if the Jewish migration was solely a flight from violence individual thinking gave way to a mass impulse, almost to a mass psycho rather than a search for higher wages or better living conditions, it should sis" (44)," be subject to unique laws of motion, responding more to the dates of riots Attributing the takeolT of migration in l881 to pogroms in that year than to trends in economic variables. A first look at the pattern of Jewish begs the question: why did mass migration only begin in 1881, despite migration seems to confirm a temporal relationship between migration the frequent nare-ups of anti-Jewish violence before this date? The Odessa and political hardship. Figure 11.1 annotates a graph of the annual pogrom of 1871 notwithstanding, Kuznets (1975) estimates that only migration now of Russian Jews to the United States with important his 31,000 Russian Jews migrated to the United States in the 1870s, com torical events. Immigration spiked in the 1891, the year that Jews were pared with the nearly 150,000 who arrived in the 1880s. Migration was expelled from the Moscow, and again in 1904-1906, the turbulent years similarly unaffected by an earlier era or persecution under Nicholas I of the Kishinev massaere (1903), the Revolution of 1905, and the wide (1825-1855), whose government conscripted Jewish boys as young as spread riots of 1905-1906. This flow, which reached over 100,000 new eight into the Russian army and forced many of them to convert to Rus migrants annually in the peak years of 1906 and 1914, came to a ncar sian Orthodoxy (Stanislawski 1983). standslill during the years of World War I and the Russian Revolution, One explanation ror this pattern is that international migration may rebounded slightly in the early 1920s, and was effeetively haIled with the have become feasible only after certain economic and demographic l~lC~ immigration restrictions of 1924. tors were in place. While Jews were subject to a web of restrictions in However, an emphasis on the uniqueness of the exodus from Russia their everyday lives-forbidden from living outside the Pale or in certain obscures striking similarities between the timing of Jewish migration to 270 Leah Platt Boustan Were Jews Political Refugees or Economic Migrants? 271
u; :;; 400,000 140,000 Table 11.1 Population Growth among Jews and Non-Jews in the Russian Empire, [S25-[900 ~ .. --. Austro.H",;gary I ;5 350,000· -- Italy 120,000 u; S :;; c -- Russian Jewish ~ 0 300,000 . ;5 °12 . 100,000 s ~ c :il 250,000· ..,0 c 80,800 ~ .~ ~ jg 200,000 :il ·60,000 ~ ~c ~ 150,000 '~ c ...,~ ~ ·40,000 .~ c ~ 100,000 ~ ~ c 'in 0 ~ 50,000 . . 20,000 a:0 '7e ;; 0 0 , , , , , , , , , , 1-.-- 0 '" 1881 1886 1891 1896 1901 1906 1911
Figure 11.2 'It II 'r "new" mi Anl1uul Jewish migration from Russia to the United Slales, c(1mparc( , 0 (1 ,l~ . , ~ drell, declinc in advance or reductions in fertility. HaHon and Williamson lrant nows, 18H 1-191 J. Data on lewish entrants rr~)!n Jo:,cph. (1914), ,1·c~·~!lCl.l ;\!~~I :V~J1~llX r1929: 1932): data on Italian ami Austro-Hullganan Ilugrat!on 111.)\\$ h011\ I CleIK?;! ,Inti (1998) and Easterlin (1961) argue that demographic transitions may help Willcox (1929; 1932). explain {he "long swings" of migration from Europe. Easterlin empha sizes that large cohorts crowd the home labor market, lowering wages the United States and or other Eastern ano Southern European migl:ant and increasing the relative beneHt of migration. Hatton and Williamson groups.H Figure 1l.2 comp,1I"cs the annual migration /lows ~o th~ United furthcr suggest that, as the transition cohort reaches young adulthood, States of Russian Jews and of Austro-HungarianR and Italians 111 188 J ~ migration rates will increa'se simply because the young are more mobile. 1914. 9 The correspondence between these time series is remarkable. This. Rapid population growth in the Jewish community over the nineteenth close relationship suggests that Jewish migration was sensitive to some 01 celltury is consistent with the presence of an early demographic transition. the same factors that drove migration from other southern al1<.I. ~aslel~n Throughout the nineteenth century, the total Jewish population of Russia European areas, with a likely candidate being economic COIH.iJllons III grew at allnual rates far above the rest of the empire (table I J .1). The the United States. growth rate l'or the overall population did not catch up to the mte in the ,Iewish community ulltil after 1880, when the increase ill the Jewish popu lo Economic and Demographic Determinants of Jewish Migration in the Long RUn lation was slowed by ollt-migration. A better measure is the rate or natural increase, which is not COI1- In addition to political uncertainty and fear for physical safety, life in the founded by differential migration patterns (except indirectly through Pale was marked by the demographic and economic pressures that ~lre changes in the age structure). While the information necessary to calcu often associated with mass migrations. These include rapid pop.ula~lon late rates of' natural increase over time docs not exist for the Russian Jew growth and a possible dcmographic transition. as well ~~s urb..:lIllZalIOn, ish community, comparable data exist for other areas of Central and residential crowding, and ongoing industrialization. In this secll~m, I Sll~ Eastern Europe. Table I 1.2 presents birth and death rates ror the Jewish gest that it was the contlucllce of these forces .rath~r than the Violence 111 communities of Prussia and Romania, as well as f'or the country as a Elizavetgrad that ushered in an era or mass J11lgratlOn. . . whole. At the time, Pntssia was marc urbanized than Russia, and Roma Demographic transitions arc characterized by a burst 01 populall~n nia was less so. In both places, the Jewish community grew rasler than the growth as mortality rates, particularly those 1'01' infants and young Chll- overall population for some period-in Prussia at least through 1840 and in Romania until ll)OO-afler which lhe positions reversed. The phase or 272 Leah Platt Boustan Were Jews Political Refugees or Economic Migrants? 273
Table 11.2 Table 11.3 Vilal Rates (per Thousand) for Jews and for the Tota! Population of Prussia and Romania. Growth or the Jewish Population for Cities ill the iJaie, 1790-1910 1820-1915 Viln ROil/lillie, Annual Annual Annual 15.0 1881-1886 46.R 26.0 20.8 4i.J 16 . .1 Gn)\vlh Growth Gmwlh Ycar Numher 1891-1895 4J.2 23.5 19.7 41.0 31.0 IO.l) Ralc{%) Year Number Riltc{%) Ycar Number Rale(%) '-10.1 12.7 1896-190n 40.1 11.4 18.7 27.4 1795 246 IS04 J10 1797 207 11.4 39.5 25.7 I J.H IR55 1901-1905 32.6 21.2 17,000 7.32 1857 3,365 4.54 1863 3,013 4.14 40.4 2(,.5 lJ.9 1906--1910 29.6 17.4 12.2 IR97 IJS.9!5 5.13 IM7 40,009 (dB 1897 31,801 7.17 10.5 42.7 24.8 17.9 1904 1911-1915 26.6 16.1 152,6.14 1.35 1910 69,012 08 1910 50,792 J.R2 ,)'(JIII"t'/:: Kuzilcts (1975, 6J 6,1). ,Yol/ree: Baron (19M, (1<1-(7). rapid growth can be attributed to low JCWi5h mortality rates. Silber cmigration abroad, I-Iowevcr, intcrnitl migration could also facilitate the (1980) reports that by the late nineteenlh century, Russian Jews exhibited overseas journey, for instance, by introducing a new arrival to migration the low fertility and mortality characteristic of Prussia at mid-century, I I networks or by providing access to transportation. In the Russian Jewish At the same lime, the Pale was undergoing a process of rapid transfor case, one important elreet of rural-urban migration was the weakening of mation from a society of small villages (shlells) to one of large urban cell the strong religious and communal bonds of shtel/life, After making their tel's. By 1897,77.8 percent of Jews in the Pale lived in incorporated cities first break rrom traditional communal lire, young people round it easier or other comillercial centers (Illiestl!chkos), compared with just IS percent to take the larger leap to Americn, a step that was often shunned by vil of the Pale's non-Jewish population.! 1. This urban concentration was the lage religious and community leaders. 15 result of a century of rural-urban migration. The urban Jewish popUla Given that demographic transition and rural-to-urban migration are tion grew faster than the .Jewish population as a whole. Table 11.3 sum both slow, long-run processes, might we need to appeal to pogroms to ex marizes the available sources for major cities in the Palc.! 3 The Jewish plain the sudden takeoff of Jewish migration in the 1880s'1 Not necessar popUlation expanded rapidly both in cities like Vilna, Minsk, and War ily. Exponential growth is a common feature of many Tllass migrations, saw, which were already home to established Jewish communities in the even from source areas without sudden catastrophic events, because of late eighteenth century (row l)j and in the new cities of Odessa, Ekateri chain migration. Carrington, Dctragiache, and Vishwanath (1996) have noslav, and Kiev (row 2).14 modeled this process as an endogenous decline in migration costs, where The direction of the theoretical relation between rural-urban migration by carly migrants I~lcilitate future waves by sending inl'ormation and pre within a country and migration across national borders is ambiguous. On paid passage and by smoothing the transition to a new society. In such the one hand, moving to a regional hub or capital city could substitute I'or a li'amework, oppression can persist indeflnilcly without migration if 274 leah Platt Boustan Were Jews Political Refugees or Economic Migrants? 275 the right economic conditions arc not in pla{.'c to encourage "pioneer'" The specification includes two measures of chain migration--the mi migrants, and conversely, migration call lake ofr once it begins. grant stock and the lagged dependellt variable. The migrant stock mea sures the size of the whole emigre community, and the lagged dependent Explaining Annual Jewish Migration Rates: The Roles of Economic Opportunity variable mirrors the f~lct that more recent migrants may have stronger lies and Religious Persecution to the home country. To explore the importance of pogroms in the liming of Jewish migra The previous section concerned thc necessary conditions 1'01' a mass mi tion, I focus 011 the following elates suggested by the historical literature: gration to begin. In this section, I turn to thc timing or population flows 1891, the year Jews were expelled fro111 Moscow: J 903, the year or the once migration has started. I rely for my empirical framework on Hatton Kishinev massacre; and 1905-1906, the period of pogroms following Ihe and Williamson's model 01' migration timing. Thc model posits that 1905 Revolulion. One simple tesl o[ Ihe importance o[ religious persecu migralion in a given year is driven by rciative economic conditions in thc tion is to augment the model with dummy variables 1'01' the years in ques sending and receiving countries and thc sizc or thc migrant stock in thc tion, which will indicate whether the popUlation outflow is significantly destination area. [(i I find that this simple model. which includes only eco oIT-trend. Because the ellcct of a riot might not have been immediate, es nomic and demographic variables, is equally adept at explaining Jewish pecially ir prospective migrants needed to save money for their journey, I migration as at accounting for other European migrations, However, consider three specifications, respectively allowing an event in year 1 to religious persecution is another important determinant or the timing of have elfect on migration in year 1 only, in year 1-1- I only) or in both years Jewish migration. with years after recorded violence posting above-trend (+ I and year (-I- 2. migration. Measuring Jewish Migration Econometric Frameworlc The model is estimated on annual data from 1886 to 1913. Because emi Following Hatton and Williamson (1993, 199R) and I-Iatton (1995), I esti gration was technically illegal, Russian oIncials never recorded the num mate a time series equHtion relating the emigration rate of Russian Jews ber of Jews leaving Ihe empire (Rogger 1986, 176-187). I approximale to the United Stales to key economic variables. The equation is: emigration with gross annual il11111i{jl'alioll of Russian Jews to the United States, a reasonable proxy given thaI the United Slales absorbed 75 MIl', = Levels Changes Measuring the Determinants of Migration (I) (2) (3) (4) Economic conditions in sOllrce and destination countries arc measured [n (U.S. employment rate), ( 148.764 here by wages and unemployment rates, which together can be concep 119.52! 90.669 198.532 (37.129) (3R.245) (30.6)9) (46.348) tualized as a migrant's expected wage (I-farris and Todaro ! 970). I lISC I~ III (U.S. employment ralc) 56.765 57.938 39.024 87.214 real series of unskilled wages in the United States and nlctory wages (36.369) (32.427) (27.518) (29.296) Deviation from log trend, in Russia (Williamson 1995; Gregory 1982). To adjust the RussianlVages --64.369 -30.024 -25.376 -32.742 Russian NNP. f .- I (19.945) (20.035) (l6.269) (l5.992) for purchasing power parity, I tlSC food and rent prices for Moscow in III (U.S.jRussian wages), r - I )4.584 4.795 1913 and nationally representative expenditure bUDgets for Russia in (7.31>9) (11.907) [n (Jewish stock ill U.S.! 1927 (Zaleski 1955; JYorker.\"' Falllily BudUel 1929). '" The resulting calcu 3.821 4.787 26.778 Russian Jewish pllIHtiation), r _ [ lations suggest that Russian factory wages around the turn of the twcnti~ (2.263) (I. JJ6) (J4.682) l'vligralioll ratc. f - ! elh century cmbodied 40 percent of thc purchasing power of unskilled 00466 0.244 (0.229) (O.IR9) wages in the United Kingdom and only 30 percent lhose in the United IVligration rate, f 2 or -0.202 -0.114 Stales. (O.ISO) (0.140) Evelll 1 (1891) I take estimates of the Jewish population from the Americol/ Jell'ish 5.342 5.184 (2.364) (2.6)3) Yearbook to measure the stock of previous migrants in the United States. Event 2 (1903) This value includes not only recent arrivals from Eastern Europe but also 4.932 8.483 (2.441) (2.639) Event 3 (1905-1906) members of the earlier German immigrant wavc. While the established (j.182 -1.819 German Jews onen snubbed Eastern Europeans socially, they were also (2.256) (2.063) Constant -710.73S instrumental in funding emigrant aid societies (Rischin 1962).;! I -537.203 -397.975 -1.772 (168.051) (170.224) (138.588) (2.402) N Estimation Results 28 28 28 28 U2 0.727 0.838 0.911 0.643 Breusch-Godfrey (p-v specifications (not shown), I allow the migration response to occur either 1401.======------___--, 35 in the event year or in the two years following an event. While migration ~ ~ 120 ~ 30 ~ rates are no higher in pogrom years themselves, they arc significantly <; ~ ~ ~ above trend in the year following stich persecutions, and return to normal 25 • by the second post-pogrom year. The cocmcicnls in column 3 indicate thal ~c 20 .~ migration rates increase by roughly five per thousand after each event, or ~ ;;< nearly a full standard deviation (the mean migration rate in 1881 ·,-1913 h; t5 :;: '":::> nine per thousand). !: interestingly, there is no evidence thalmigration rates responded to the ·10 .= severity of violence. There were no recorded deaths in the expulsion of ~• 5 e- Jews from rvloscow, and only 45 deaths and 86 serious injuries reported = in the 1903 pogroms; compare these ligures to the 1,000 deaths and 0 '" 7000-8 000 wouncled in 1905-1906 (Baron 1964, 57). Despite the fact tl'lat the' number of casualties was an order of magnitude higher. the mi Figure 11.4 Esti!11a~eu Je\\'i.~h. in-migration from tlie Russian Empire to the Uniteu Stales, by province gration response in 1905-1906 was only 1.3 times larger than in 1891 or .[fS~:~-.'9/ 4. ~ndl\'1dual rccords frotll Ruggles ct al. (2004). Immigrants arc classified as Jcw~ 1903. Jewish migrants may have been responding to rumors or a climate 1.'\ I} ,lIltleatlng mother longuc of Yiddish, Jewish, or Hebrew. Jewish immigrants arc cate gOllzcd by ycar of entry 35,r;::======;------~ falls to within 9 percent or its no persecution counterpart, but because of I Wi,h"" pog'om ,",po"," 30 - _. ---- With pogrom rusjlonsu --,'. the ef1c~t on the migrant stock, the two rates never fully converge. The " , " compal~l~on suggests that even aftcr the -initial migration response waned, an {lckhtlon.i1 IR,900 Jews arrived in the United Slates who would not otherwise have made the journey in the len years after the expulsion from 20 ----,.. Moscow (1894-1903). '" The combined long-run effeel of the Kishinev pogroms and the 1905-1906 turbulence was the sending of an addilional ... --~- - - 31,500 migrants from 1910 through 1913. Assessing the Circumstantial Evidence for the Persecution Theory 5 --- Proponents or the persecution theory point to features of Jewish O"~~~~~~-,_r~._~_._r~._~_._r~,~_,_.~ migrants-including their tendency to move in family units and their 13B6 lBBB 1890 1892 1894 1896 139B 190U 1902 1904 1906 190B 1910 1912 high rates of emigration relative to other ethnic grouiJs in the Russian Figure 11.5 empire-as indirect evidence DC the importance of religious persecution. Simulated Jewish immigration rates from Russia It) the United S\'Hcs. with and withollt po Indeed, women made up 43 percent of Jewish entrants to the United grom response, I SR [-191:1. Annual migration rales arc simulated ming the cllcflkiclIi csti mates fr011l tahle 11.4 (column 3) allli actual data nn economic conditi(1Ils. fvIcilsmc,<; of Slates fi'om 1899 lo 1910. compared lo only 31 percenl of the lolal immi total Jewish stock and previous yc,1r's migr'ltioll flow nrc updated ill c,\(;h ycnL granl flow. Furlhermore, while Jews comprised only 4 pereenl of the lOlal population orthe Russian empire, they represented nearly 50 percent of its by an increase in the slock of .Jews living in the United States. In the interconlinental migration (Joseph 1914, 176 .. ··182). I argue here thal nei 1880s there were seven .Jews in the United States for every 100 Russian ther of the,,;;c filets nre incompatible with the notion of Jews Table 11.5 families. Following the panic of 1893 and the ensuing recession in the Share of Jewish rViigranl Stock ill the United Slaies ThaI Is Female. hy Rcgillll of Origin. 1910 United States, the female share fell by 10 percentage points, By the mid- 1900s, the female share had recovered, It is hard to disentangle the clTeet Shmc Female !~rcqllcncy of the 1905-1906 pogroms from a temporary period of family reunifica Rllssian Eillpin! tion following the earlier recession. Whatever the case, it is clear lhat Baltic slales O.5()H 2% variation in the female share over lime docs not seem to be primarily Russian Poland (JAG) 579 driven by the time pattern of religious persecution. Ukraine and Bcssarabia OAR? )14 A high female migration rate appears to be a feature of lewish migra Russia, other (JAN {1,21 S tion across areas and lime periods. One explanation might be the cultural Olilside (~( Elllpire norm of endogamy, which persisted in the New World (Goldscheider and Auslw*!-I ungar), 0.505 9SB Zuckerman 1984), Another motivation might be the high labor force par Romania n.S2! :1[5 ticipation of women and chiklrel1, who made up 30 percent of the Jewish Western Europe and other 0.515 190 labor force in the Pale in 1897 (Rubinow 1907,524), Once arriving in Source: Individual records from thc [920 integrated microsHmplc of the U.S. Census (Rug the United States, Jews :C'oncelltralecl in the garment industry, whose gles cl al. 2(04). Nore: immigrants afC classified as Jewish if they indicate il 1110lher longue of 'Yiddi$h, Jew decentralized structure allowed Jewish families to "use more of the labor ish, or Hebrew. Sample limited to arrivals hetween 1890 and 1914. resources of the household members [thanl would have been possible within the framework of factory employment" (Kahan 1978, 240), 0.55,------, What should we make of the fact that Jews had higher emigration rates Ihan any other group in the Russian empire? From 1899 to 1914, mem bers of' Russia's other ethnic minorities, including Poles) Lithuanians, 0.5· ------___ ~--~\c_------~------" Finns, and Germans, migrated to the United Stales at a rate or five per thousand, which is comparable to .Jewish figures in the 1880s. Because it ------~- -- - -~------" --- , is common for migration to follow an inverted U-shaped paltern-accel , " erating with chain migration and eventually declining with wage conver gence between source and destination-it is reasonable to imagine that 0.4------~,~,.'-'------~--~--~-- " this outflow would have continued were it not for the outbreak of World War I (Hallon and Williamson 1998), Thus, it may be 1110re accurate to 0.35 --~~- - ~------~~----~---,------, call .Jews the first, rather than the only, ethnic group to leave the Empire. - % femaln, Russian Jews, Census - -"" % female, AI! Jews, Entry counts Furthermore, while few ethnic Russians left the empire altogether, 0.3h-~~~~~~~~~~::;:::;::::;:::;::::;::::;:::;::::;:::::;:::;=;==;=;'..j therc were substantial popUlation movements within the cmpire, both to IBBO IBB4 IBBB IB92 IB96 1900 1904 190B 1912 the main cities of St. Petersburg and Moscow and to the eastern Ji·onticr. Figure 11.6 In the decade of the highest Jewish migration (1900s), the average rate of Female share of Russian Jewish immigrants to the United State~, three~year moving. avcr internal migration to Asiatic Russia was two per thousand from 1900 to ages, 1880-1914. For RlIs~ian JCW5, the female share is calculated from thc 1920 integrated 1904; it JUIllJled to eight per thousand in the turbulent period after the micro-sample of the US Census Ruggles et al. (2004). Immigrants are classified as Jewish if indicating mol her longue t1f Yiddish. Jewish, or Hebrew. Russian empire includes Rusgian 1905 Revolution (1905-1909),' 1 Poland. the Ballic Stalcs. Bclorussia, the Ukraine, Bcssarabia, ami a large "other RtI~~ian" category. For comparison, also included is female share of ,111 "Hebrew" immigrants, as col lectcd by the Immigration Service from 1899 to 1914 (FcrclH:;-;i and Wilknx 1929; 1(32). Conclusions The timing of .Jewish migration, like that of other migrations to the New World, responded to economic conditions . .Jewish migration was 286 leah Platt Boustan Were Jews Political Refugees or Economic Migrants? 287 particularly inl1ucnccd by the health of the United Slates ecollomy, per I). This pattern was tirst noted by lIersch (1931), who noted that "Jewish immigration par alleled the iotal immigration to the United Slates" and concluded that ".Jewish immigration haps because of its role as a financial constraint on migration networks. arosc parlly f'mlll gcneral causes ... and p,lrlly !l'om circumstances peculiar to the life of the The single most important factor in the growth of out-migration rates .Iews·· (475). from the Russian Jewish community was the size or the Jewish popula 9. The datil underlying this series are from Ferenczi alld Wilkox (1929, 3B4~3(3). Jews lIlade lip 9 percent of Anslro-Hungarian migration from ISSI 10 1910 (Joseph 1914, 110). tion in the United Slales. The path dependence or chain migration sug 10. The fastest population growth ill the Pale was in the Ukraine, and the slowest ill thc gests that religious violence had both shorl- and long-term cneels. Not northern areas of Lithtwnia and Belorussia. This disparity could be due to iuterna! mjgra only did migration notably increase in the years after anti-Jewish riots tioll to the Ukrainian cities of Odessa and Kiev or to higher (lutmigfation mles from the North (SI European Russia as a proxy for standard:;; of living, rather than faclory wage:;. He also lill~its 1992. The AntjMjewish Pogroms in Russia in 1881, In PO!ll'Om.\·: AlIti·Jcwish Vio his definition of the migrant stock to Eastern European Jews in New York City, .ovcr!ooklllg. ICllce ill Mot/I'm Russiall History, cd . .I. D. Klier and S. Lalllbroza. Cambridge: Cambridge German Jews ,md Jews in the rest or the Coulltry. As a result, he linds that the IllIgrallOll rate Uuiversity Press. was una/rected by the size of the migrant stock, whicb is at odtls with the bulk of empirical Baron, S. W. 1964. The Russian JCll' Unda T.mr.t lIlld SOI!iefs. New York: Macmillan. work 011 European migration and with whal we know of the Jewish migration experience from !iOcial histories. Carrington, W . .I., E. Delragiache, and T. Vishwallath (1996). Migration with Endogenous Moving Costs. Amcrican Ecollomic RetJiell' 86: 909-930. 22. To the best of my knowledge, there arc 110 extant wages series for cities in the l';lIe at the turn of the century. Chiswick, B. 1992. lewish Immigrant Wages in America in 1909: An Analysis of the DillingM ham Commission Data. Exp/ol't1tiollS ill Ecollomic lJi.l'to/y 29 (3): 274-289. 23. Aronson (1992) describes the economic contcxt surrounding ,the I g.H! Ukrain~an pog roms as follows: "Landless peasants ... were attracted to the relatIvely richer Ukrallle from Collin,';, \Y. J. 1997. When the Tide Turned: Immigration and the Delay of the Great llIack allover Russia. .. New arrivals were ullusually numerous in the spring of I HR!, since an in Migration. Jmf/'/wl of ECOIlOmic History 57 (3): 6()7-(i32. dustrial depression ... threw mallY factory hands ... in ~Io~('ow all~I.SI. I:~tersburg Ollt of Dubnow. S. M. 1918. /1;,\'(01')' (~r (he Jell'.\' ill Ru.rsia alld Po/alld. Philadelphia: lewish Publi work .... /In lHJditionlloca[ crop j~lilures .. led to ncar-famlllc comillJons. See also Legge cation Society of America. (1996) 011 tin economic theory of anti-Semitism. Easterlin, R. 1961. Influcnces in European OversellS Emigration Before W()dd War I. Ec.'o 24. For iI contrary view, sec RoggeI' (19R6, 28-33). I/O/llie DL'Ve/oFII/ClIt 1111d Culru/'al CI/(lJ/{/e 9 (3): J31-351. 25. 7R.6 percent or Jewish immigrants from the Russian empire in Ihe 1920 Censl1s do lll:( Enge[man, U. Z. 1949. Sources of Jewish Statistics. In The .leu's: Theil' lJis(O/)', Culture, alld indicate their province or birth. This comparison may be imperfect. then, given that It Reliaiml, cd. L. Finkelstein. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America. includes only the 21.4 percent who do. Ferenczi, f.. and W. Wilkox. 1929. IlIt£'marirJ/l(]/ Mil}mliull.\'. Vol. I. New York: National 26. in addition to adding the simulated migration flow 10 the stock. I ,lIlow the stock to Bureau of Economic Research. grow by 3 percent in every year due to natural increase and the in-migration of Jews from 1932. ftlli'rJwtiollal Miol'lltio1lS. Vol. 2. New York: National Bureau of Economic the rest of the world. Research. 27. The sillHiialions in figure 11.5 do not include the twice-lagged migratiun r~lte, whic.h is Frankel, J. [983. The Crisis of /881-82 as a Turning Point in Modern Jewish History. In neve\, !'Itatistically significant. When the negative etl'cct or the twice-lagged rate IS taken mlo nle LcOOlY (!(Jewish Miyralion: 1881 and Irs 1I1IP£1ct, cd. D. Berger. New York: Columbia account, the two migration rates converge soon aftcr the date of a known p(lgroll~ ~lIot University Press. shown). Titus, the figure represents an upper hound on the long-term eITecl of religiOUS per~eeution. Godley, A. 2001. Jcwish IlIIlIJiarmlt Elltrepreneurs/III! ill Nell' York and LOlldoll, 1880-1914. New Yurk: Palgrave Macmillan. 28. From 189410 1903 the pogronH'cspOllse migration rate was, on average, 0.39 per tholl sand higher in each year than wa~ the no-response rate. The Rus~ian jcwi~h population was Goldscheider, c., and A. S. Zuckerman. 1984. The Ihll1.~/;J/'II/(Jri()J1 of the Jell's. Chicago: around 4.8 million in this decade, implying that in the long nUl the expu!slOn from Moscow University or Chicago Press. led to the arrival or an additional [,900 Jewish migrants in every year (= 0.39 x 4,800). Gould, J. D. 1980. European Inter-Continental Emigralion--The Road I·lome: Return Mi 29.47.7 percent of jewish migrants who entered the country between 1899 ;~I1d 191O.'l!1d gration frolllthe U.S.A. JOl/mal (!f EUI'O/lellll Economic lfi.l'{o/J' 9 (I): 41-1 12. were enumerated in the [920 Census were remale, compared to 43 percent of new alTl\'als Granl. O. 2003. Globalisation versus Decollpling: German Emigration and the Evolution of tallied by the Immigration Service over the same period. This disparity could be due to (he Atlantic Labour Market, 1870-1913. E.\pto1'l1riol1.r ill ECONomic Ilistory 40 (4): 387-418. higher rales of male mortality. Gregory, P. R. [982. Russian Natio/lulillcomc, 1885-1913. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer 30. Recovering the female share or the migrant flow from ~he 1920 Census will I?c i~lcreas sity Press. ingly biased because of diITerential morlality by gender the lurther one goes back III tunc. In Harris, .f. R., and M. P. Todaro. 1970. Migration, Unemployment and Development: A 1920 the average Jewish immigrant who entered the Unitcd States in IRHO was 56.5 years Two-Sector An<1lysis. Americall Eco11omic RCl'iell' 60 (I): 126-142. olt!. II' anything, this mortality wi!! bias thc remale share in the 18EOs upward, implying an even II/r{/a male majority among pioneer migrants. Halton, T. .I. 1995. A rvlodel or UK Emigration, 1870-1913. RCl'iL'H' o/EcOTlOmics {llld Sta* li.\'(ics 77 (3): 407-415. 31. Anderson (!980. 203) present:; internal migration rates to Asiatic Russia in five-ye;~r intervals rrom 1885 to 1909 by province of origin. rvligratioll to the agricultural frontier 15 Hatton. T. J .• and .I. G. Williamson. 1993. Arter the Famine: Emigration from Ireland, an underestimate or total popUlation mobility. [R50-1913 . .Io/l1'l/1I1 (~f Economic lJis{o/~I' 53 (3): 575-600. 1998. 1'lIC A(/I' f!l Jl!m;\' Mi!//'(/fio11. New York: Oxford University Press. References Hersch, L. 1931. International Migration or the jews. In bUl'1'1l11riol/al Migl'alioIlS, cd. W. Willcox. New York; National Bureau or Economic Research. Joseph, S. 191 Klier. J. I), 1992. Russian ./ewry on Ihe Eve of tile 1>{Jgroms. III !'0!JfO/llS: :,llIfi-.ft:l1'ix!t !/io Inequality and Poverty in latin America: A long-Run felice ill Model'll RII.l'Sillll 1Ji.\'(OI:r, cd . .I. D. Klier and S. Lamhroza. Camhrldge: (mnhndgc 12 Exploration University Press. Kuzl1c\$, S. 1975. Immigrnlion of Russian Jews to the United Stales: Background and StfUC lure. I'cl',ll}('ctil'l's ill AlllericlIlI lIi.\·(IJI)' 9: 35-124. Lambroza, S. 1992. The Pogroms of 19OJ-1906. III PO.rJrOlm: A,lIli-Jcl1'idl F!o/clIl't' ii,' U(~d leandro Prados de fa Escosura t'1'II RII;;sillll llisfu/Y, cd. J. D, Klier and S. Lamhr(lz;J. Call1bmlgc: Cambridge L1mvcrSl!Y Press. Lcbcrgott, S. 1957. Anllllfli Estimates of U nCl1lp!oYJl\C~lt il,l the Uni,tcd Sta~c~,.. r.?(~(:-1?5~. III 11/C 1\l{,(IS/(I"CIJII!!/f (flld lJelll/viol' oj UlIl!lIIp/O)'lIlCllf: A Cm!/('n'J/~'e (!! fill' UI~II'U.\.IfIl.\-I\(/t/()/1II1 IJII/'('t/ll Committee/;lr ECOllomic Reset/I'd/. Princc\on, N.J.: Princeton Uillverslty Press. Lcg.g.e. 1. 1996. An Economic Theory of Anti·Semitism: Exp[oring Altitudes in th~ New German Slate. Po/i(im{ !?c.\·clIrch QI/(frfer~!' 49 (3): (] [7- (]:lO. Lestchinsky, J. 1949 . .Iewish Migrations. [R40-I(J46. In TlIf':/CH's: Tflcir,~Ii.\·fO/',l> Oi/flln:, (flld Rellyioll. cd. L. Finkelstein. Phi[adelphia: Jewish PublicatIOn SOC!ely o! Alllcl'lca. Latin America is louay the world region in which inequality is highest, Uiwe, '·I.-D. 2004. Pogroms in Russia: Explanations, Comparisons, Suggestions, .I('wisit ,)'/1- with an average Gini coeHkient above 50 during the last four decades of cial Sflldies II (I): [6-13. the twentieth century (Deininger and Squire, 1996; 1998). A stable in Risehin, M. 1962. 'nw Pro/llised Cify: Nt'Il' }'Orli'5 J('H'.~. 187()·.jC)J./. Camhridg.e. M,ISr,:. Harvard University Press. cOllle distribution in the early postwar period worsened after 1980 (Alti Roggcr. H. 1986 . .~L'\1'is" /'olicies (llId RiOl/t-Wil1!1 /'olitics ill Imperial Russia. Berkctey: Uni mir 1987; Morley 20(0). Furthermore, no significant improvement in the versity of California PresS. relationship between income distribution and economic growth has taken Rubinow, I. M. 1907. El'IlI1olllic Conditioll f!f tlte Jcws ill Russia, Ncw York: Ami) Press. place during the last decade (LondOlio and Szekely 2000), and inequality 1975. Ruggles, S., M. Sobek, T. Alexander, C. A. Fitch, R. Goeken, P. K. Hall, 1\'1. ~(ing, and C. remains high despite episodes of sustained grolVth (ECLAC 2000). Ronnander. 2004. Inle~ralcd Public Usc Microtlat!! Series: Version 3.0. r.... lachllle-Readablc Is today's high inequality a permanent feature of modern Latin Ameri Datahase. Millncapolis~ rvlinncsota Population Center. can history? I-low has inequality alTected poverty in the long run? These Ruppitl, A. [93'1. Tile .Iell's ill tltc Modem World. London: i'vfacmillan. are pressing questions for social scientists. Unfortunately, no quantitative Schmelz. U. O. 197\. Illfilllt alit! EllrZI' C/lildlJood Mont/lit.!' Ali/oil!! .fC!I'.~ (~/ tlil' /)im'{Jo}'(l. Jerusa[em: Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hehrew Univcrsity of Jerusalem. assesslllent of long-run inequality has been carried out for Latin America, Silber,.!. 19HO. Some Demographic Characteristics (11' the Jewish Population in Russia at the except for Uruguay (l3ertola 2005), but the perception of unrelenting in End or the Nineteenth Century. Jewislt 5,'m:i(// Stlldic.\' 42 (3A): 269-2HO. equality deeply rooted in the past is widespread (see, for example, Bour Stamp/er, S. [9H6. The Geographic Background of East European Je\\:ish IVligratio~l to the guignon and MorrissOl1's (2002) assumptions). United States before World War I. in Miy/'/lfhm ;jcI'o.\·s Tilllc (/1/(/ NI/(/oII:\': j'oflll{atl/JII Mo hilit}' ill l/isforico/ COII(i'XfS, cd. I. A. Glazier and L. De Rosa. New -'fori.;: Holmes and In this chapter I first examine long-run trends in inequality in modern Meier. Latin America and then, on the basis of trends in inequality and growth, Stanislawski, M. 19R3. T.wr Niclto/as I lIl/(l t/it' Jeu's: Tht' TI'lIll.~/()I'II/(/lioll (!fJcu';sh Sociefy make a preliminary attempt at calibrating their impact on poverty in Russia, /825-/855. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication SOl:icly of America. reduction. Vernoil,.I. R. 1994. Unemployment Rates in Postbellulll {\merica, IH69~IR99. JOIln/tI/l!l MU/.'/'{It'COIIOlllics 16 (4): 7{)1~714. \;Yhcn did inequality originate, and why has it persisted over lime? Vickery, W. E. 1977. 711L' E·{.'/Jllomics (!It/Jc NC!f1'O MiWtltillll. }i)(){)-J9fJf), New York: Arnn Alternative interpretations have bcen put forward. Those that cmphasize Press. its colonial roots are worth stressing, According to Engcrman and Sokol Williamson, J. O. 1995. The E\,olution of Global Lahor l'vIilrkcts .~ince UGO: Background Evidencc and i-Iypolheses. Explorations ill Ecol/olI/ic lIis(ory 32 (2); 141···1%. off (1997), initia I incquality of wea Ith, human capital, and political power Wischllilzer, M. 194R. To Dwell;'l Sq/'efY: nil' Story (!/'.lcll'is/t Mi!fl'flliOIl siul'(' IS(/O. Phil:l conditioned institutional design, and hence performance, in Spanish delphia; Jewish Publication Society of America, America. Large-scale estates, built on pre-conquest social organization Workers' Family Budget Enquiries ill Soviet Russia. 1929. Illtc/'I/(Ili{ll/(// Lah(l//r Repiell' 20 antI an extensive supply of native labor, established the initial levels of in (2): 568-576. equality. In the post-independence world, clites designed institutions pro Zaleski. E. [955. Lcs fluctuHtions des prix de detail en Union Sovictique. Etudcs 1'( CmUII//(' fllfl'S 4: :129-384. tecting their priVileges. In such a path-dependent framework government