Full text: Migration and business cycles

MIGRATION AND BUSINESS CYCLES 
States from Canada, adjusted to eliminate the influence of typical 
seasonal variation, are compared with employment conditions in 
the United States and Canada, respectively. Employment con- 
ditions in Canada are represented by the percentage of un- 
employment among trade union members (with the signs reversed 
so that severe unemployment is represented by a depression in the 
curve and vice versa). Employment in the United States is re- 
presented by the ‘labor market” index previously described. 
The major depression of 1921 and the lesser decline in 1923 are 
common to employment in both countries. Both are above average 
in 1919 and the first half of 1920, begin to decline in 1920 to a low 
point in 1921, with a recovery beginning in 1921 and continuing 
through 1922 and part of 1923, followed by a moderate decline. 
In 1920, the downturn in employment came about three months 
Jater in Canada than it did in the United States. 
To summarize, in the years from 1919 to 1922, inclusive, im- 
migration from Canada tended to be greatest when employment 
was good in both countries and to be low when employment was at 
a minimum. For Canada in these years, it would appear that it is 
good prospects in the country receiving the immigration, rather 
than distress in the home country of the prospective immigrant, 
which cause cyclical fluctuations in immigration. However, the 
upward movement of Canadian immigration in 1923 is not con- 
sistent with this principle, inasmuch as employment in the United 
States evidences a cyclical decline subsequent to April of that year. 
In Chapter VIII, we return to this problem of the relative influence 
of conditions in the country of immigration and the country of 
emigration. 
CHAPTER SUMMARY 
Fluctuations in migration in the war and post-war periods are 
dominated by non-economic influences to a much larger extent 
than in the pre-war period. Nevertheless when the effect of the 
economic factors has been as far as possible isolated, we find in the 
post-war period much the same relation between employment and 
migration as in the pre-war years. An increase in employment is 
reflected, somewhat later, in an increase in immigration and a de- 
crease in emigration. 
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