U.S. Census Shows Lower Birthrate Among Jews; Residence is Factor

Jewish families in the United States are having fewer children than Protestants or Catholics but the principal reason is the high degree of urban residence by Jews and not religion.

This is the principal finding of Erich Rosenthal, associate professor of sociology and anthropology at Queens College, in an analysis of the findings of the United States Census Bureau, which indicated that children under 18 made up 27.7 percent of Roman Catholics, 26.7 percent of White Protestants and 22. 2 percent of American Jews.

Reporting on the findings in the 1961 American Jewish Year Book, Prof. Rosenthal said this meant that Jewish fertility was 80.1 percent of Catholic fertility and 83. 1 percent of Protestant fertility.

He said that it had long been know that human fertility rates depends heavily on such matters as home ownership, education, occupation and income with racial, ethnic and religious factors of lesser importance. It also has been long established that urban fertility in the United States has been lower than that for rural areas. He pointed out that the larger the community, the smaller the number of children per family and that apartment dwellers have fewer children than home owners.

On this basis, he stated, it was found that the Jewish fertility had equaled that for all white residents of cities as a whole and concluded that “residence is the most significant factor in the low Jewish fertility.”

Other factors listed were the fact that the educational level of Jewish women is higher than the average of other groups; that most Jews are white-collar workers who tend to have fewer children than manual laborers and the higher average income of Jews as city dweller Evidence indicated that except for the very rich, there is an inverse relationship between the size of income and the size of the family.