The Economics of American Judaism

The Economics ofAmericanJudaism THE ECONOMICS OF AMERICAN JUDAISM} by . . Carmel Ullman Chiswick Carmel U. Chiswick is Professor of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago. Previous work includes several papers on the economics of religion as well as labor economics and economic demography. I. Introduction 1 Despite many indications of increased vitality within the American Jewish Community, the attachment of many (if not most) of its members is so loose as to call into question their ability to transmit the fundamentals ofJudaism from one generation to the next. According to the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey, (NJPS), out-marriage rates among Jewish-born Americans have been increasing steadily throughout the twentieth century and reached 55 percent for the 1985-90 marital cohort.2 Although most of these out-marrie'ds retain their Jewish identity, few are expected to raise children capable or even desirous of carrying on the Jewish tradition. Moreover, many of the inmarried Jews in this cohort are 'The author is indebted to many people for comments on earlier drafts of this work, including Howard Adelman, Barry Chiswick, Alice Goldstein, Evelyn Lehrer, and Michael Shapiro. Helpful comments were also received from participants in the 1993 meeting of the Midwest Jewish Studies Association and the 1995 meeting of the' American ·Economics Association. The current paper benefits from their suggestions but remains. the sole responsibility of the author. 'This rate is for first marriages only (Carmel U. Chiswick, "Determinants of Religious Intermarriage: Are Jews Really Different?" Papers injewish Demography 1993 [forthcoming )). Earlier, studies have found intermarriage rates to be generally.higher for later marriages (B. A. Kosmin, N. Lerer, and E. Mayer, Intermarriage, Divorce, and Remarriage Among.Am.ericanjeUls 1982-87 (North American Jewish Data Bank: Family Research Series, No.1, August 1989). 2 SHOFAR Summer 1995 Vol. 13, No.4 at best marginal participants in the Jewish community and are likely to be weak transmitters ofJewish culture. Among those concerned with the long-run survival ofAmerican Jewry per se, there is an urgent need to understand better the underlying relationship between the Jewish community and its members.3 This paper analyzes that relationship from an economic perspective, focusing especially on implications of economic life of individuals for their Jewish participation. The perspective is necessarily broad, abstracting from cyclical income changes which despite their effects on Jewish spending and behavior are not so fundamental as to alter the basic life-style patterns of American Jews as a whole. The focus of this paper is on the economic environment of American Jews as it relates to their ability and willingness to participate in Jewish family and communal life. The methodology follows that of the recent literature on the economic history of institutions in general and religious institutions in particular.4 The maintained hypothesis is that changes which effectively reduce the cost of being Jewish will be more quickly adopted and integrated into the common pattern of American Jewish life. Similarly, the persistence of current practice in the mainstream will be adversely affected by rising costs, and changes using relatively scarce resources will be adopted (if at all) by smaller groups of more intensely committed adherents. This hypothesis is not one of economic determinism , explicit or implicit, but rather an acknowledgment that economic factors affect receptivity (or lack of it) within the Jewish community to maintaining traditions and to potential innovations. The origins of such innovations, presumably rooted in the spiritual and social life of the Yrhe term "community" is used broadly to refer to American Jews in general and their distinctively Jewish institutions. This is conceptually distinct from, and should not be confused With, local-level groupings based on particular geographical areas, synagogue associations, or other common interest criteria. Although economic issues clearly affect the survival ofthese subgroups in various ways, an analysis of these relationships is beyond the scope of this paper.