Racial Stratification and Socioeconomic Change in the American North and South. Discussion Paper #377-76.

Recent change in the life cycle processes of educational, occupational, and earnings attainments among blacks native to the South, native to the North, and among black migrants from the South to the North is analyzed. Native northerners begin from relatively superior social origins and are better able to capitalize on these processes in the attainments of education and occupation than are either southern-born group. Between 1962 and 1973 the stratification experiences of the northern-born blacks rapidly converged with those of the white majority so that by 1973 their system of stratification was more like that of whites than of southern-born blacks. The processes of status allocation among the southern-born in 1973 were like those of northern natives in 1962. In this sense the integration of blacks into the majority stratification system began first and has proceeded furthest among blacks born in the North. Men living in the North, regardless of nativity, enjoy higher earnings than men living in the South. In all, changes over the recent decade have supported the internal differentiation of the black population, the development of more distinct socioeconomic strata, the greater stability of inequalities between generations of blacks, and gains toward socioeconomic integration. These changes have been more characteristic of the North than the South. (Author/JM)