MIGRATION AND BUSINESS CYCLES 
standard deviation from the average of the four years, 1919-1922; 
hence the curves are useful only for the study of timing and not for 
comparing the volume of unemployment with the volume of migra- 
tion. 
Lag. 
The male immigration curve, it will be noted, continues to 
rise for ten months after the employment curve begins to fall 
early in 1920. It is true there is a temporary slump in immigration 
in the early part of 1920, but it may be equally plausible to interpret 
this as a reflection of some of the erratic movements of 1919 rather 
than as a prompt reaction to the current decline in employment. 
On the downward swing of the cycle, although the evidence is less 
emphatic, immigration again seems to reach low ebb six or seven 
months later than the labor market, but on the upward movement, 
in the attainment of the 1923 high and the commencement of the 
subsequent decline, the labor market leads immigration by only a 
couple of months. 
Doubtless the cyclical movement of migration after the middle 
of 1921 is influenced by the quota restrictions, but no small part of 
the immigration of these years came from Canada and Mexico, 
which are not subject to the quota limitations. In a subsequent 
section, we return to an examination of the movement of immigra- 
tion from Canada. 
Post-War Cyclical Movements in Male Emigration. 
The post-war fluctuations in male emigration, as in immigration, 
are somewhat abnormal. In 1919 emigration increased, not so 
much because employment conditions were discouraging as because 
many who would otherwise have returned to Europe during the 
war years found in 1919 their first opportunity to revisit their native 
lands. In 1920 the emigrant movement declined somewhat from 
the high point reached toward the close of 1919 and the beginning 
of 1920, but this decline was temporarily checked by the depression 
of 1921. Since 1921, emigration has been consistently low, not 
only because of the industrial recovery from the depression con- 
ditions of 1921-1922, but also because of the fact that the restriction 
of the incoming flow, and the fear of those who are here that they 
may be unable to return readily if they once leave, combined with 
the deterring effect of unsettled political conditions and industrial 
depression in European countries, have kept emigration to a mini- 
mum. 
130