Skill Selectivity in Transatlantic Migration: The Case of Canary Islanders in Cuba

Abstract

The skill composition of European migrants to the New World and their contribution to the human capital and institutional formation in destination countries are popular topics in economic history. This study assesses the skill composition of 19thcentury transatlantic migrants to Cuba. It finds that nearly half of the European immigrants originate from the Spanish province of the Canary Islands, which displays the lowest literacy and numeracy rates of Spain. Even within this province, those who left belonged to the least skilled section of the population. By promoting the influx of a cheap and poorly educated white workforce that replaced African slaves on their sugar estates, large landowners in Cuba contributed to the perpetuation of high economic, political and social inequality.

Do you have to be tall and educated to be a migrant? Evidence from Spanish recruitment records, 1890–1950

“…On the other hand, also using education-based proxies, Abramitzky et al (2012) hold that Norwegian migrants to the US in the period of 1850-1914 were negatively selected in terms of their occupations and wealth from the sending population. Juif (2015), using age heaping proxies of numeracy, also finds a negative selection of emigrants from the Canary Islands to Cuba. She argues that migration was mainly driven by push-factors, particularly crises of the agricultural export sector that affected poor farmhands most.…”

“…However, there are also cases in which particular groups of migrants did not contribute to raise education levels, i.e. their education level was lower than in the receiving country population (Juif, 2015).…”

The age of mass migration in Latin America

“…There is a sharp contrast between Spaniards from the Peninsula and Canary Islanders. The latter display the lowest literacy and numeracy rates in Spain and those who left were the least skilled; Juif, ‘Skill selectivity’.…”