Gender and American Jews: Patterns in Work, Education, and Family in Contemporary Life

Notes

n o t e s 1. An Introduction to Gender and American Jews and the Significance of the Inquiry (pages 1–9) 1. With the exception of Jews who claimed they were also adherents of a “noncompatible ” religion such as a Christian denomination. (For more details, see United Jewish Communities, 2003d.) 2. Education Patterns: The Foundation of Family and Economic Roles (pages 13–24) 1. However, the differences are statistically significant, with χ2 significant at p < 0.01. 2. Differences in the education of the different age groups are significant (p < 0.01) for both men and women. 3. χ2 < 0.01 for gender differences in each of the age groups 45 and over. 4. The dissimilarity coefficient tells us the amount of dissimilarity, but only the comparison of the actual data can tell us the direction of difference. 3. Family Patterns of American Jews (pages 25–43) 1. The percentage of those cohabiting may well be underreported, as it relied on respondents’ volunteering the information. This proportion represents only those who voluntarily characterized their marital status as “living together” (rather than never married or divorced, for example). Others may also be living together, but do not consider this their marital status. Most of those who reported “living together” as their marital status were single (never married) and between the ages of 25 and 34. 2. Our numbers differ slightly from those of the United Jewish Communities’ (2003c) initial report, which focused on the answers of respondents under the age of 50 (see United Jewish Communities, 2003c, pp. 8–9, for a definition of their sample). 4. Labor Force Participation and Occupational Achievement (pages 44–87) 1. According to the NJPS, the majority (more than 90%) of Jewish children up to 3 years of age are in childcare or preschool, and the majority (94%) of 4- to 5-year olds are in kindergarten or preschool, but this is often for only a limited portion of the day, which may preclude outside employment for at least one parent. 277 278 notes 2. Boushey (2005) attributes the lack of increase in women’s labor force participation rates to the state of the economy, suggesting that women are more greatly affected by it than men because they are less likely to be in secure or tenured positions, and are more likely to be part-time workers. Although we do not have information on seniority for the Jewish population, clearly women are more likely than men to be part-time workers, so the reasoning would seem to apply to Jewish women as well. 3. The scores are adapted from Carl Frederick’s work at the University of Wisconsin , Madison, per an e-mail communication with Robert Hauser (of the University of Wisconsin, Madison), December 4, 2005. 5. Dual-Earning Patterns of American Jews (pages 88–117) 1. Looking only at married wage and salaried employees, the 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce found the proportion of such employees in dual-earner couples was 78% (Bond, 2002, p. 3). Among Jewish couples with at least one spouse employed, 71.2% were dual-earner couples, a somewhat smaller proportion. Perhaps this is because a larger proportion of American Jews remain in the labor force at older ages than does the broader population and/or because of the larger proportion of Jews at younger ages who are still completing their education (more detailed tabulations from the NSCW were not available to confirm this). 2. Apparently there is some selectivity among men answering the income question , such that those who do report their earnings on the survey have higher income than those who do not report their earnings (Chiswick and Huang, 2006); therefore, absolute values of income may be somewhat skewed. 6. Gendered Patterns of Jewishness (pages 121–151) 1. All factor analyses performed were principal components Varimax rotation. 2. The questions that did not share variance make for an interesting digression. The following were excluded: use of the Internet to obtain Jewish-related information ; agreement that American Jews have a greater responsibility to rescue Jews than non-Jews in distress; agreement that “I have a special responsibility to take care of Jews in need around the world”; agreement that the fact that “I am a Jew has very little to do with how I see myself” (the direction of responses was reversed, but still the variable did not have enough commonality to be included ); doing volunteer work for a Jewish organization; familiarity with the United Jews of America Federation campaign; and agreement that Jews in the United States are a nationality. We suspect that the responses to these variables are confounded by some other influences and therefore do not express mainly or only Jewish identity. For example, because Internet use is related to educational level and age, the responses are probably confounded by these additional influences on Internet use; responsibility for other people’s welfare may be notes 279 confounded by personal wealth; and so on. Therefore, these variables do not have as much commonality with other variables that more clearly indicate Jewish identity without the confounding influence of other characteristics. 3. It is interesting that responses to “being Jewish: countering anti-Semitism” have high loading on this second factor. Heilman (2003–4, p. 64) suggests, “Often, the people who are attracted to these activities [combating antiSemitism ] are those who need some common enemy to make them feel they are part of the Jewish community.” As such, it fits with the symbolic commitment of those attached to the “moral community” of Jews rather than those for whom being Jewish reflects a more active and daily commitment. 4. The survey also included a question about keeping kosher outside the home; however, it was asked only of people who kept kosher at home and therefore excluded a substantial portion of the sample. We did not feel we could make the a priori assumption that all people keeping kosher outside the home also kept kosher inside the home, and therefore did not include this indicator in our analysis. Similarly, the question about refraining from the use of money on Shabbat was asked only of those who kept kosher and lit Shabbat candles, and we did not feel we could assume that all others did not observe this. 5. See note 2 for this chapter, about the exclusion of a similar variable, using the Internet to obtain Jewish-related information. 6. The results also show that “subjective” indicators (how a respondent feels about a certain aspect of Jewish identity) often have high loading on the aspect of Jewish identity to which they relate rather than loading on a separate “subjective ” factor of how a person feels about being Jewish. A few leftover subjective questions of a more general nature loaded on one of the last factors, but they did not explain enough variance to be included as a separate factor. 7. See Howe and Strauss, Generations (1992), on the characteristics of an “idealist ” generational cohort, of which baby boomers are an example. 8. This figure is somewhat higher than that reported by Cohen (2004), probably because ours is a somewhat narrower definition of the sample than his, which included more Jews whose current identification with being Jewish is more tenuous. 9. According to the NJPS data, 82.5% of men and only 26.6% of women had a Bar or Bat Mitzvah. However, only respondents who had formal Jewish education were asked the question, so men and women who did not consider their training for Bar/Bat Mitzvah “formal” did not have the opportunity to respond. This makes the question less reliable than other estimates of Jewish education, so we do not use it in further analysis. 10. The way that these questions were asked is somewhat problematic (see Cohen, 2004), so we will not dwell on further analysis of them. 7. How Jewishness is Related to Family Patterns of American Jews (pages 152–171) 1. Of course, there are other steps: dating or otherwise seeking a mate, cohabiting, and sometimes having a child before marrying. However, the data on dating or 280 notes cohabiting in this survey are not comprehensive enough for us to determine how many couples dated or cohabited before marriage, for how long, and whether this indeed was their first step toward marriage. Only 2% of the women in the sample had children before their first marriage, too few to analyze. So we start with the first data that we have for most of the sample. 2. Some continue their education at a later age, presumably after marriage, as we discussed in Chapter 2 (as “lifelong learning”). Unfortunately, the current data set does not enable us to determine the age at which a degree was earned, or whether those in school as adults are studying to obtain a degree. Without at least this basic information, we cannot determine how many Jews actually receive degrees after they are married. 3. Only two women in the sample (less than 0.1%) reported having their first child after the age of 45. Only six women (0.3%) had their last birth after age 45. 4. Because age at birth of first child is most strongly predicted by age at first marriage , we skip over this step of family behavior to simplify the already complex presentation. 8. How Jewishness is Related to Gendered Patterns of Secular Achievement (pages 172–202) 1. Note that the dissimilarity coefficient is calculated on the detailed educational distribution, and not on the dichotomy of whether the respondents are college educated or not. 2. We confined our analyses to these family characteristics, as we had data for both men and women. Data on age at birth of first child, number of live births, and age of youngest child were collected only from female respondents, and so were not included. We considered including number of times married, but found it had an insignificant influence. Chapter 10, on intermarriage, includes more analysis based on number of times married. 9. How Jewishness is Related to American Jews’ Dual-Earning Patterns (pages 203–229) 1. Income was not directly controlled for because of the number who did not answer the question; the resulting sample would be smaller and skewed toward those who did answer the question. 10. Intermarriage and Gendered Patterns of Secular Achievement (pages 230–249) 1. Intermarriage itself is not an indication that the marriage partners were in a different marriage market than Jews who married Jews. From Cohen and Eisen’s research (2000), it seems that perhaps they were not. Indeed, it would be worthwhile to study the differences between marriage markets of inter- and intramarried Jews. notes 281 11. Conclusions and a Look to the Future (pages 253–268) 1. Indeed, other questions that a priori would be expected to share this “individualism ” did not load as highly on that factor as on others, such as “ever pray using own words.” ...