Jewish Immigration to the United States from 1881 to 1910: Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, Vol. LIX, No. 4, 1914Joseph, Samuel
History
Jewish Immigration to the United States from 1881 to 1910: Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, Vol. LIX, No. 4, 1914
Joseph, Samuel
Jews -- Europe; Jews -- United States; United States -- Emigration and immigration
While the percentage of males in the total immigration was above 70
per cent in five years, the percentage of males in the Jewish
immigration was less than 60 per cent in all but two years, 1904 and
1905, when it rose to 61.2 per cent and 63.2 per cent. The latter,
which represents the highest point in the percentage of males in the
Jewish immigration, was smaller than the percentage of males in the
total immigration for every year but 1899. In other words the maximum
percentage of males in the Jewish and the minimum percentage in the
total immigration practically coincide.
In the period between 1899 and 1909 the proportion of children under
fourteen years of age in the Jewish immigration was 24.8 per cent,
while that in the total immigration was only 12.3 per cent.[100] The
Jewish thus had proportionately twice as many children as the total
immigration.
The exceptional position of the Jews in regard to their family
movement is most strikingly shown when the composition of the Jewish
immigration by sex and age is compared with that of the other
immigrant peoples.[101] In a comparison with immigrant races which
contributed more than 100,000 to the total immigration from 1899 to
1910, the Jews are seen to have a higher proportion of females than
any other people except the Irish. The Irish present in this regard an
anomaly, in that they have more females than males in their
immigration. That it is not in the main a family movement is shown by
reference to the proportion of children under fourteen in the Irish
immigration, which is only 5 per cent, one of the lowest in the entire
series. The anomaly is easily explained by the well-known fact that
their females for the most part are single, who come to the United
States to work as servants.[102]
Only one other people, the Bohemian and Moravian, approached the
Jewish in its high proportion of females. On the other hand, the one
people with a larger immigration than the Jewish, the South Italian,
presents a striking contrast to the Jewish immigration, in that its
proportion of females was about half that of the Jews. Although its
immigrants numbered twice as many as the Jewish, the females in the
Italian movement were only 408,965, as compared with 466,620 females
in the Jewish immigration.
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