Values, Demand and Social Mobility

to that hypothesized. In the case of naturalization, for example, there is some reason to believe that new immigrant groups had higher average naturalization rates during the heyday of immigration to the United States after group differences in length of residence are taken into account. 3 We have already referred to a re-examination of data from the influential Dillingham Commission study in which Handlin found their data did not support the assertions of greater social problems among new immigrant groups. Our study of immigrants in Australia supports the possibility that old-new differences in the United States were due to the fact that the old groups were first established in sizable number in the nation. An alternative interpretation of these results might be that the conditions of settlement in Australia, despite the country's western development, are significantly different from those of the United States in an earlier era and therefore the old-new theory is not relevant. This of course has implications for the distinction when it is applied to the United States. For if the dichotomy is applicable to the immigrants of one country but not another, the question is raised of what conditions account for its relevance in some circumstances. Although it is possible to interpret the Australian results as due to changes in either the conditions of international migration or in a decline in cultural dissimilarities between European groups, this investigator is inclined to interpret the findings as suggesting that differences between old and new groups-in the extent their cultures approximated early settlers of the United States-has been overemphasized at the expense of considering the importance of timing of arrival. In brief, although northwestern Europeans differ from southeastern and central European immigrants to a statistically significant degree in three of the 14 demographic variables examined, this study fails to support the broad theory of old groups' superiority developed for immigrants to the United States around the turn of the century. 37 John Palmer Gavit, Americans by Choice, New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1922, Chapter 8; Lieberson, op. cit., pp. 141-146.