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The occupational attainment of American Jewry: 1990 to 2000

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Abstract

This paper compares the occupational distributions in 1990 and 2000 of adult white men and women for Jewish-born Americans and non-Jewish Americans after adjusting for changes in occupational classifications over the decade. This paper extends a time series for men from 1890 to 1990 previously published in Contemporary Jewry. The data are from the microdata files from the National Jewish Population Surveys (1990, 2000-01) and the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Censuses of Population. Among both men and women, American Jews had a greater proportion in the high-level occupations (managerial and professional) in 1990, and the difference increased over the next decade. Among Jews and non-Jews, there only were small gender differences in the proportions in the high-level occupations. Thus, religion was more important than gender in explaining occupational patterns. American Jews of both genders experienced a continued decline in self-employment over the decade.

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Authors
  1. Barry R. Chiswick
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Additional information

I appreciate the comments of Carmel U. Chiswick, as well as those of the two referees, the research assistance of Jidong Huang, and assistance with the NJPS from Lawrence Kotler-Berkowitz.

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Chiswick, B.R. The occupational attainment of American Jewry: 1990 to 2000. Cont Jewry 27, 80–111 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02965547

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