Bitter Sugar: Slavery and the Black Family in the US

The GLO Discussion Paper of the Month of May studies the effect of historical slavery on the African American family structure. It reveals that female single headship among African Americans is more likely in association with slavery in sugar plantations, since the extreme demographic and social conditions prevailing in the latter have persistently affected family formation patterns.

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS, EconPapers)Complete list of all GLO DPs downloadable for free.

GLO Discussion Paper of the Month: May

GLO Discussion Paper No. 564, 2020

Bitter Sugar: Slavery and the Black Family – Download PDF
by
Bertocchi, Graziella & Dimico, Arcangelo

GLO Fellows Graziella Bertocchi & Arcangelo Dimico

Author Abstract: We empirically assess the effect of historical slavery on the African American family structure. Our hypothesis is that female single headship among blacks is more likely to emerge in association not with slavery per se, but with slavery in sugar plantations, since the extreme demographic and social conditions prevailing in the latter have persistently affected family formation patterns. By exploiting the exogenous variation in sugar suitability, we establish the following. In 1850, sugar suitability is indeed associated with extreme demographic outcomes within the slave population. Over the period 1880-1940, higher sugar suitability determines a higher likelihood of single female headship. The effect is driven by blacks and starts fading in 1920 in connection with the Great Migration. OLS estimates are complemented with a matching estimator and a fuzzy RDD. Over a linked sample between 1880 and 1930, we identify an even stronger intergenerational legacy of sugar planting for migrants. By 1990, the effect of sugar is replaced by that of slavery and the black share, consistent with the spread of its influence through migration and intermarriage, and black incarceration emerges as a powerful mediator. By matching slaves’ ethnic origins with ethnographic data we rule out any influence of African cultural traditions.

GLO Discussion Papers of May 2020

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564 Bitter Sugar: Slavery and the Black Family – Download PDF
by 
Bertocchi, Graziella & Dimico, Arcangelo

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560 Cooking Fuel Choice, Indoor Air Quality and Child Mortality in India – Download PDF
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558 The Role of Institutional Trust in Medical Care Seeking during the COVID-19 Pandemic – Download PDF
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556 Happiness-lost: Did Governments make the right decisions to combat Covid-19? – Download PDF
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555 On Recessive and Expansionary Impact of Financial Development: Empirical Evidence – Download PDF
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552 COVID-19, Lockdowns and Well-Being: Evidence from Google Trends – Download PDF
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551 Intergenerational consequences of maternal domestic violence: Effect on nutritional status of children – Download PDF
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550 Sleeping patterns and psychological wellbeing: Evidence from young adults in the United States – Download PDF
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549 Don’t judge a book by its cover: The role of intergroup contact in reducing prejudice in conflict settings – Download PDF
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548 Lost Wages: The COVID-19 Cost of School Closures – Download PDF
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547 Gendered Effects of Employment Protection on Earnings Mobility – Download PDF
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546 Telework and Time Use in the United States – Download PDF
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545 Deportation, Crime, and Victimization – Download PDF
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541 All that glitters is not gold. Effects of working from home on income inequality at the time of COVID-19 – Download PDF
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539 From the Entrepreneurial to the Ossified Economy: Evidence, Explanations and a New Perspective – Download PDF
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538 Estimating Poverty among Refugee Populations: A Cross-Survey Imputation Exercise for Chad – Download PDF
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537 The Influence of Hidden Researcher Decisions in Applied Microeconomics – Download PDF
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536 Does retirement lead to life satisfaction? Causal evidence from fixed effect instrumental variable models – Download PDF
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535 Welfare Dynamics in India over a Quarter Century: Poverty, Vulnerability, and Mobility during 1987-2012 – Download PDF
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534 Drawing policy suggestions to fight Covid-19 from hardly reliable data. A machine-learning contribution on lockdowns analysis – Download PDF
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533 Leaders among the leaders in Economics: A network analysis of the Nobel Prize laureates  – Download PDF
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532 The COVID-19 crisis and telework: A research survey on experiences, expectations and hopes – Download PDF
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531 Peers, Gender, and Long-Term Depression– Download PDF
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GLO DP Team
Senior Editors: Matloob Piracha (University of Kent) & GLO; Klaus F. Zimmermann (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University and Bonn University).
Managing Editor: Magdalena Ulceluse, University of GroningenDP@glabor.org  

DP of the Month May

Ends;

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