Migration and Occupational Adjustment of West Virginians in the City.

The purposes of this paper are to (1) present a theoretical background on the reasons for the hastened exodus of rural Appalachians and (2) describe occupational patterns of Appalachians and, in particular, West Virginians in Cleveland, Ohio. The data presented were secured in 1967 by a survey of West Virginians living in the so-called Appalachian ghetto and in the suburbs of Cleveland. Among the findings of the study were: among West Virginians in Cleveland, ghetto residents were much younger than suburbanites; probably more than any other variable, technical skills differentiates the four survey groups, and particularly the three groups of migrants; returned migrants have the largest proportion of unskilled workers, ghetto, the largest proportion of semiskilled, and suburbans, the largest proportion of skilled workers; there was a great turnover between the migrants' occupation before migration and his first Cleveland job; as compared to West Virginia, migrants in Cleveland from West Virginia had a lower proportion of unemployed and retired; and, Cleveland migrants, and in particular suburbanites, had considerably higher income than people from the State of West Virginia as a whole. (Author/JM)