Seminar
Research seminar: The Fluidity of Race: "Passing" in the United States, 1880-1940
- Speaker
- Emily Nix, University of Southern California
- Date
- 22 May 2018
- When
- 11:45 - 12:45
- Where
- Auditoriet, SSB, Akersveien 26
Content
Emily Nix: https://sites.google.com/site/emilyenix/
(University of Southern California )
“ The Fluidity of Race: "Passing" in the United States, 1880-1940 ”
Joint with Ricardo Dahis and Nancy Qian
Abstract: This paper quantifies the extent to which individuals experience changes in reported racial identity in the historical U.S. context. Using the full population of historical Censuses for 1880-1940, we document that approximately 5-17% of black males "passed" for white at some point during their lifetime and passing was accompanied by geographic relocation to communities with a higher percentage of whites. Consistent with our analysis recovering true passing as opposed to reflecting matching or measurement error, we find that less than 1% of white males change their reported racial identity. The evidence suggests that passing was positively associated with better political-economic and social opportunities for whites relative to blacks. As such, endogenous race is likely to be a quantitatively important phenomenon.
Contact
-
- Position
- Forsker
- martin.andresen@ssb.no
- Phone
- 40239166