Beaudin Alex, Kristian Elizabeth, Warren John Robert, Helgertz Jonas
Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota.
Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota.
Soc Sci Hist. 2022 Fall;46(3):671-691. doi: 10.1017/ssh.2022.7. Epub 2022 Mar 25.
We examine the socioeconomic consequences of discrimination against people of Southern origins during the U.S. Great Migration of the first half of the 20 century. We ask whether people living in the American North and Midwest in 1940 fared worse with respect to education, occupation, and income if they were perceived to be of Southern origins. We also assess variation in these effects across racial groups and across actual region of origin groups. Using linked data from the 1920 and 1940 U.S. Censuses, we compare the life outcomes of about half a million pairs of brothers who differed with respect to the regional origin implied by their first names. For both whites and blacks, we find statistically significant associations between outcomes and the regional origin implied by names; regardless of where they were born, men living in the North or Midwest in 1940 did worse if their names implied Southern origins. However, these associations are entirely confounded by family-specific cultural, socioeconomic, and other factors that shaped both family naming practices and life outcomes. This finding-that regional discrimination in the early 20 century U.S. did not happen based on names-contrasts sharply with findings from research in more recent years that uses names as proxies for people's risk of exposure to various forms of discrimination. Whereas names are a basis for discrimination in modern times, they were not a basis for regional discrimination in an era in which people had more immediate and direct evidence about regional origins.
我们研究了20世纪上半叶美国大迁徙期间对南方裔人群的歧视所带来的社会经济后果。我们探讨了在1940年居住在美国北部和中西部的人，如果被认为是南方裔，在教育、职业和收入方面是否境遇更差。我们还评估了这些影响在不同种族群体以及实际原籍地区群体之间的差异。利用1920年和1940年美国人口普查的关联数据，我们比较了约五十万对兄弟的生活状况，他们因名字所暗示的原籍地区不同而有所差异。对于白人和黑人，我们都发现结果与名字所暗示的原籍地区之间存在统计学上的显著关联；无论他们出生在哪里，1940年居住在北部或中西部的男性，如果他们的名字暗示南方裔，境遇就更差。然而，这些关联完全被家庭特有的文化、社会经济和其他因素所混淆，这些因素既塑造了家庭的命名习惯，也影响了生活状况。这一发现——20世纪早期美国的地区歧视并非基于名字——与近年来使用名字作为人们遭受各种形式歧视风险代理的研究结果形成了鲜明对比。虽然名字在现代是歧视的一个依据，但在一个人们对原籍地区有更直接证据的时代，名字并非地区歧视的依据。
