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  5. Race, Ethnicity, and Labor Coercion
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Race, Ethnicity, and Labor Coercion

Paper Session

Saturday, Jan. 7, 2023 12:30 PM - 2:15 PM (CST)

New Orleans Marriott, Preservation Hall Studio 3
Hosted By: Economic History Association
  • Chair: Felipe Valencia Caicedo, University of British Columbia

Enemies within the Gates: Evidence from Stalin’s Ethnic Cleansing Campaigns

Julia Zimmermann
,
Free University of Berlin

Abstract

This research investigates the impact of the forced relocation of 2.8 million Soviet citizens from the border regions of the Soviet Union to Central Asia between 1937 and 1944 on local labor markets, education, and political decisions. The deportations targeted nine ethnic groups, who were denied their political and administrative rights and forced to work. In 1953, five of these groups were rehabilitated and allowed to return to their former homeland, while the other four remained in internal exile until the collapse of the Soviet Union. The study uses the rehabilitation decree as an instrument to analyze the effects of the deportations on these outcomes. The findings indicate that those in the host regions who did not benefit from labor market complementarities had significantly higher levels of education two generations later, which is not due to institutional inertia or a skills mismatch between non-settler locals and the Slavic population. The study also finds that descendants of deportees who returned to their origin regions had higher levels of education, suggesting that these ethnic groups were able to hedge against further negative shocks. Finally, the research shows that descendants of deportees had a higher approval of Soviet rule in the 1991 referendum and displayed complex protest behavior in the late 1980s.

The Occupations of Free Women and Substitution with Enslaved Workers in the Antebellum United States

RaeAnn Robinson
,
George Washington University
Barry Chiswick
,
George Washington University

Abstract

This paper analyzes the occupational status and distribution of free women in the antebellum United States. It considers both their reported and unreported (imputed) occupations, using the 1/100 IPUMS files from the 1860 Census of Population. After developing and testing the model based on economic and demographic variables used to explain whether a free woman has an occupation, analyses are conducted comparing their occupational distribution to free men, along with analyses among women by nativity, urbanization, and region of the country. While foreign-born and illiterate women were more likely to report having an occupation compared to their native-born and literate counterparts, they were equally likely to be working when unreported family workers are included. In the analysis limited to the slave-holding states, it is shown that the greater the slave-intensity of the county, the less likely were free women to report having an occupation, particularly as private household workers, suggesting substitution in the labor market between free women and enslaved labor.

Catching-up and Falling Behind: Russian Economic Growth, 1690's-1880's

Elena Korchmina
,
University of Southern Denmark
Stephen Broadberry
,
University of Oxford

Abstract

This paper provides decadal estimates of GDP per capita for the Russian Empire from the 1690s to the 1880s. GDP per capita in the 1880s was almost the same as in the 1690s, but this was not the result of continuous stagnation. Rather, positive growth during the first half of the eighteenth century was followed by negative growth between the 1760s and 1800s and stagnation from the 1800s to the 1880s. The main driver of this variation in GDP per capita was the relationship between population and land, with land per capita increasing to the 1760s, then declining to the 1800s and staying stable during the nineteenth century. This suggests that serfdom may not have been as strong a barrier to eighteenth century growth as has often been suggested, nor its abolition in 1861 as significant for subsequent growth. Although large-scale industry grew more rapidly than the rest of the economy, particularly after Peter the Great’s reforms in the early eighteenth century, this had only a minor effect on the economy as a whole, as it was starting from a very low base and still only accounted for 10 per cent of GDP by the 1880s. Russian economic growth before the 1760s resulted in catching-up on northwest Europe, but this was followed by a period of relative decline, leaving mid-nineteenth century Russia further behind than at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Discussant(s)
Natalya Naumenko
,
George Mason University
Belinda Archibong
,
Barnard College
Amanda Gregg
,
Middlebury College
JEL Classifications
  • N0 - General
  • O1 - Economic Development