Working Paper: NBER ID: w27372
Authors: Ran Abramitzky; Leah Platt Boustan; Dylan Connor
Abstract: The Industrial Removal Office funded 39,000 Jewish households to leave enclave neighborhoods in New York City from 1900 to 1922. Compared to neighbors with the same baseline occupation, program participants earned 4 percent more ten years after relocation. These gains persisted to the next generation. Benefits increased with more years spent outside of an enclave. Participants were more likely to speak English and married spouses with less Jewish names. More Jewishly-identified men (as measured by own name) were more likely to return to the city. We contextualize these results with new national evidence on Jewish economic and cultural assimilation.
Keywords: immigrant mobility; cultural assimilation; economic advancement; Jewish immigrants; industrial removal office
JEL Codes: J15; N12; R23
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| IRO program facilitated upward mobility (J62) | IRO participants earned 4% more than their neighbors (J39) |
| Moving out of immigrant enclaves (J61) | upward mobility (J62) |
| Sons of IRO participants earned 6% more than sons of non-participants (J79) | intergenerational benefit associated with initial relocation (J62) |
| Relocation facilitated upward mobility (J62) | increased access to better economic opportunities (F63) |
| IRO participants more likely to speak English (F50) | cultural assimilation (Z19) |
| IRO participants more likely to marry spouses with less distinctively Jewish names (J12) | cultural assimilation (Z19) |
| Men with more Jewishly identified names more likely to return to New York City (R23) | complex relationship between cultural identity and geographic mobility (J61) |