Economics of American Judaism

by Chiswick; Carmel

• ISBN13: 9780415701570
• ISBN10: 0415701570
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-04-25
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Recent developments in the application of economic theory to the analysis of religion have provided important insights into hitherto-neglected economic aspects of religious behavior and the structure of religious communities. This book on the economics of Judaism fills a blind spot in the social scientific study of Jews in America. The sociological literature and conventional wisdom both agree on the centrality of economic experience to Jewish life, as it is to any group. Economic topics such as income, immigration, education, occupational structure and mobility, asset accumulation and changes in family structure are central features of the American Jewish experience about which economics has much to say, yet until now, there has been no general treatment of these subjects incorporating economic analysis. The book rectifies this omission.

Table of Contents

List of figures
List of tables
Overview	p. 1
Introduction	p. 3
First approach: the economics of American Judaism	p. 12
A retrospective: the economics of American Judaism	p. 27
Immigrants	p. 37
The economics of Jewish immigrants and Judaism in the United States	p. 39
Economic transformation of American Jewry	p. 53
Marriage and family	p. 59
The economics of contemporary American Jewish family life	p. 61
Determinants of religious intermarriage: are Jews really different?	p. 78
Jewish continuity	p. 89
An economic perspective on religious education: complements and substitutes in a human-capital portfolio	p. 91
The cost of living Jewishly and Jewish continuity	p. 107
The economics of Jewish continuity	p. 118
Israel and American Jewry	p. 139
Impact of the Six-Day War on American Jewry: an economic perspective	p. 141
Israel and American Jewry in the year 2020: an economic analysis	p. 149
Immigrant impacts on Israel's labor force: implications for economic development	p. 169
Index	p. 175
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