Jewish Identity, Occupation, and Earnings: The American Experience

This paper studies how Jewish culture and social identity influenced the economic patterns of American Jews, focusing on immigrants to the United States at the turn of the 20th century and their American-born Jewish descendants. It identifies high levels of education for both men and women as a key factor leading to the clustering of Jews in relatively high-earning professional occupations. It examines four hypotheses for this pattern, finding that cultural characteristics associated with Judaism is the most consistent with economic evidence. The paper also considers some implications for changes over the course of the 20th century in American Jewish identity, religious institutions, and differences in education between Jews and others.