Mining microdata: Economic opportunity and spatial mobility in Britain and the United States, 1850–1881

For almost two centuries social theorists have argued that the fundamental difference in social structure between Europe and North America arises from greater economic and geographic mobility in North America. We study social mobility in three countries across two generations using machine learning techniques to create panels of individuals linked between censuses thirty years apart (1850-1880, 1880-1910). This paper reports on a preliminary analysis of social mobility between 1850 and 1880, finding that mobility was markedly higher in the United States and Canada, compared to Great Britain.