MIGRATION AND BUSINESS CYCLES
survey of the pertinent information concerning industrial conditions
and particularly concerning employment. The hurried reader who
is interested primarily in conclusions and little in method may find
it advantageous to skip this chapter on employment indices (Chapter
ITI) and proceed directly to the comparisons between industrial
conditions and migratory movements.
With these preliminary pictures of the nature of the immigrant
stream and of employment conditions before us, we proceed, in
Chapters IV to VI, inclusive, first to a survey in broad outline of
the cyclical movement in migration, then to a more detailed analysis
of the movements of migration, particularly in the decades since
1890, there being for this period, especially during the years immediately
 preceding the Great War, a relative abundance of detailed
monthly data concerning migration.
In Chapter VII attention is turned to differences in the cyclical
movements of selected elements in migration, in order to ascertain
the relative extent to which employment conditions affect the movement
 of immigrants as compared with nonimmigrants, of males as
compared with females, or of workers as compared with those immigrants
 having no occupation.
The question naturally arises as to whether the economic conditions
 which influence migration to the United States are primarily
those of the country of immigration or whether the alternations of
prosperity and depression in the country of emigration may not
exercise an equally strong influence on the time and volume of
migration. Hence Chapter VIII is devoted to a consideration of
peculiarities in the fluctuations of immigration from leading countries
 and to changes in economic conditions in those countries, as
bearing on the relative power of the “push” or the “pull” in determining
 changes in the volume of migration.
While the cyclical aspects of migration are of most significance for
the purposes of this study, it is also pertinent to inquire concerning
the degree to which the seasonal distribution of migration harmonizes
 with the seasonal distribution of employment in those
industries in which large numbers of immigrants are employed.
Chapter IX is devoted to such a survey.
In the concluding chapter, we bring together the significant
relations and conclusions developed in the earlier chapters.

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