Abstract
This chapter examines the “Diaspora Hypothesis” that the high level of educational attainment of American Jews and diaspora Palestinian Arabs is due to the greater portability (transferability across countries) of human capital than of non-human capital assets. The relevance for this book is the discussion of the hypothesis for Jews. If Jews overinvested in schooling, they would have both a higher level of schooling and a lower rate of return from schooling. Yet, data for the United States indicate that Jews have both a higher level of schooling and a higher rate of return. This suggests that their higher level of schooling may be a consequence of schooling being more profitable for them.
Revision of original article published in Economic Development and Cultural Change, 31(4), July 1983, pp. 861–875. Co-authored with Eliezer B. Ayal. I am responsible for the current version.
We would like to express our thanks to the Shiloah Institute, Tel-Aviv University, and its director, Professor Rabinovitz, for allowing access to their files.
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Notes
- 1.
Each of the types of persecutions described in the paragraph also implies an additional form of substitution away from future consumption, which is less certain, and toward current consumption. After having acquired enough transferable assets (human or physical) to assure one’s escape, one would expect that a population fearful of expulsion will have a lower saving rate and less total investment in human and nonhuman capital than others.
- 2.
Refugees have far more difficulty than other immigrants in transferring their pre-migration skills to their country of destination. See Chiswick (1978).
- 3.
In addition, although gypsies underwent experiences similar to Jews in many European countries, it is believed (we know of no data on this) they have not made large investments in human capital as have Jews. Another implication of the Brenner-Kiefer model is that as a consequence of lower total investments and greater investments in human capital Jews have invested less than others in physical capital and financial assets. It is not obvious that this has happened. (See, this volume, Chap. 16.)
- 4.
A similar implication arises if Jews invest more in human capital because of a greater “taste” or “preference” for this activity. Because of a greater nonpecuniary return from, say, schooling, they would invest in more years of schooling and have a lower pecuniary rate of return.
- 5.
- 6.
Consider the following quotation: “Since the establishment of UNRWA, it has developed a network of health, social service, educational, and vocational training facilities which provide resources superior both quantitatively and qualitatively to those existing under the British Mandate in Palestine or to those in most host countries” (Peretz 1977, p. 65).
- 7.
There were substantial sex differences in schooling and in literacy among Palestinian Arabs in the period of the Mandate. Among persons aged 7 and over in Palestine in 1931, the percent literate, by sex, is shown below.
Source: Census of Palestine (1931), 1:206.
- 8.
These points were made by a number of authors and recently by Hallaj (1980).
- 9.
As recently as 1973, 84% of the students were Christian. See Erlich (1981).
- 10.
For a discussion of the rapid success of this “upper and middle bourgeoisie,” see Badran (1980).
- 11.
Consider the following quotations: “As a result of increased opportunities to join the faculties of medicine and engineering in the Arab countries, the number of those seeking to specialize in these subjects increased, including some students whose marks in the general secondary certificate or whose material circumstances did not permit their attending the classical universities“(Badran 1980, p. 71); “the admission policies [of Arab universities] are to a large extent based on the available space in the natural and physical sciences” (Abu-Lughod 1973, p. 110).
- 12.
See Badran, 1890, p. 72. Of those studying abroad (the vast majority), 50% are in various “branches of the arts,” 25% in “economics, political science, business management and commerce,” and the remainder in “medicine, engineering, the natural sciences and agriculture.”
- 13.
The large proportion in “civil service” in Pakistan is attributed to the practice of requiring a university degree for civil service clerical jobs (Stone 1973).
- 14.
In commenting on the effect of the increase in wealth from switching to hashish production, the wife of a village elder in the Bekka Valley of Lebanon said: “If a man grows the hashish he can build a house, marry off his daughter, feed his family. Our sons can go to the university and become doctors and engineers” (Kifner 1981).
- 15.
A similar distribution can be found in Abu-Lughod, p. 97.
- 16.
The family ties are a consequence of the considerable movement of Moslems back and forth across the Palestinian border. Bachi indicates that Palestine was a net recipient of Moslems in the century prior to World War I, with other parts of the Ottoman Empire being the main sources. He also estimates that during the period 1923–46 the annual rate of immigration of Moslems into Palestine was 1.1 per thousand of the Moslem population. These immigrants were primarily from the neighboring countries – Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt. Bachi attributes the Moslem immigration to the expanding employment opportunities in the agricultural and nonagricultural sectors of Palestine. He infers that “a considerable number of Palestinian Moslems married women from neighboring countries” from the disproportionate number of young women who immigrated. See Roberto Bachi (1974). For similar conclusions, see also Gottheil (1973). There was also net in-migration of Arab Christians into Palestine from the surrounding countries, mostly from Lebanon and Syria, during these periods. See Ayal (1980). The annual rate of Moslem immigration into Palestine during the British Mandate was small in comparison with the large Jewish immigration. By international standards, however, it is a high rate of immigration. For example, it is 40% of the annual rate of legal immigration to the United States from 1975 to 1980, including Southeast Asian and Cuban refugees.
- 17.
For example, “higher education for the Palestinians has been geared to the fulfillment of individual needs and non-Palestinian requirements and job markets” (Hallaj 1980, p. 79).
- 18.
Ibrahim Abu-Lughod mentions this in an article quoted in Al Dustur, Aman (March 31, 1980).
- 19.
In a book about migration in the Arab world in the 1970s, Abu-Lughod states that Iraq “is encouraging other Arabs through offers of citizenship and other inducements” (Abu-Lughod 1978).
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Ayal, E.B., Chiswick, B.R. (2020). The Economics of the Diaspora Revisited. In: Chiswick, B. (eds) Jews at Work. Studies of Jews in Society, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41243-2_10
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