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Inventing the immigration problem : the Dillingham Commission and its legacy
In 1907 the U.S. Congress created a joint commission to investigate what many Americans saw as a national crisis: an unprecedented number of immigrants flowing into the United States. Experts--women and men trained in the new field of social science--fanned out across the country to collect data on these fresh arrivals. The trove of information they amassed shaped how Americans thought about immigrants, themselves, and the nation's place in the world. Katherine Benton-Cohen argues that the Dillingham Commission's legacy continues to inform the ways that U.S. policy addresses questions raised by immigration, over a century later. Within a decade of its launch, almost all of the commission's recommendations--including a literacy test, a quota system based on national origin, the continuation of Asian exclusion, and greater federal oversight of immigration policy--were implemented into law. Inventing the Immigration Problem describes the labyrinthine bureaucracy, broad administrative authority, and quantitative record-keeping that followed in the wake of these regulations. Their implementation marks a final turn away from an immigration policy motivated by executive-branch concerns over foreign policy and toward one dictated by domestic labor politics. The Dillingham Commission--which remains the largest immigration study ever conducted in the United States--reflects its particular moment in time when mass immigration, the birth of modern social science, and an aggressive foreign policy fostered a newly robust and optimistic notion of federal power. Its quintessentially Progressive formulation of America's immigration problem, and its recommendations, endure today in almost every component of immigration policy, control, and enforcement.-- Provided by publisher
Book
American Marketplace
Demographics and spending patterns of American consumers in one handy volume.
eBook
Small Populations, Large Effects
In the early 1990s, the Census Bureau proposed a program of continuous measurement as a possible alternative to the gathering of detailed social, economic, and housing data from a sample of the U.S. population as part of the decennial census. The American Community Survey (ACS) became a reality in 2005, and has included group quarters (GQ)-such places as correctional facilities for adults, student housing, nursing facilities, inpatient hospice facilities, and military barracks-since 2006, primarily to more closely replicate the design and data products of the census long-form sample.
The decision to include group quarters in the ACS enables the Census Bureau to provide a comprehensive benchmark of the total U.S. population (not just those living in households). However, the fact that the ACS must rely on a sample of what is a small and very diverse population, combined with limited funding available for survey operations, makes the ACS GQ sampling, data collection, weighting, and estimation procedures more complex and the estimates more susceptible to problems stemming from these limitations. The concerns are magnified in small areas, particularly in terms of detrimental effects on the total population estimates produced for small areas.
Small Populations, Large Effects provides an in-depth review of the statistical methodology for measuring the GQ population in the ACS. This report addresses difficulties associated with measuring the GQ population and the rationale for including GQs in the ACS. Considering user needs for ACS data and of operational feasibility and compatibility with the treatment of the household population in the ACS, the report recommends alternatives to the survey design and other methodological features that can make the ACS more useful for users of small-area data.
eBook
American Marketplace
Quick and easy access is the goal of the new 12th edition of The American Marketplace: Demographics and Spending Patterns. Designed for convenience, The American Marketplace draws on scores of government sources to give you a population profile of the United States in one handy volume. Its hundreds of tables are organized into 11 chapters covering attitudes, education, health, housing, income, labor force, living arrangements, population, spending, time use, and wealth.
eBook
A Note on the Use of Race and Color in Jewish Social Scientific Research
This note takes as its point of departure the tensions and discrimination against individuals and groups that persist in the United States on the grounds of race and color. It is unfortunately likely that there is a long road ahead before racial and color-based prejudice, abuse, inequality, and indignity are no longer normative in the US. Growing incorporation of Jews in US society and culture brought about the adoption in Jewish social research of concepts and categories routinely used in the classification and analysis of the general population. I take issue with the uncritical use of categories such as race or color in Jewish social scientific research. The study of population diversity is essential for both cognitive and policymaking purposes. However, I maintain that some frequently used classification criteria, along with evident conceptual weaknesses, are plagued by a conscious or unconscious racist component. The use of race and color categories—no matter how well-meaning—is not congruent with a fair and thoughtful approach to social research in general, and to Jewish social research in particular. Instead, it looks like naïve and poorly understood, intentionally offensive or irrelevant concepts are increasingly applied in the definition and study of Jewish minorities. This raises substantial questions regarding the contributions of certain analysis to the resilience of racism in America.
Journal Article
According to their Numbers: Assessing the Pew Research Center’s Estimate of 7.5 Million Jewish Americans
The Pew Research Center’s survey, Jewish Americans in 2020, was designed to provide estimates of the size of the US Jewish population, sociodemographic data on issues such as intermarriage, child-rearing, engagement in Jewish communal life, and a description of American Jewish attitudes. A sophisticated sample design was employed to ensure accurate and generalizable assessments of the population. Because Jews are a small sub-group and the US government does not collect census data on religious groups, creating estimates is a non-trivial task. The focus of this paper is on the validity of Pew’s estimate of 7.5 million US Jewish adults and children, 2.4% of the overall US population. The estimate is an important standalone indicator and is the basis for assessments of current Jewish attitudes and behavior. This paper considers the underlying construct of Jewish identity and its operationalization by Pew and evaluates the convergent validity of Pew’s findings. The efforts to define “who is a Jew” in sociodemographic surveys is described, and a set of methodological challenges to creating estimates are considered. The results of this review indicate that Pew’s criteria for inclusion in the population estimate comports with long-standing views of how to assess the Jewish population. Furthermore, Pew’s estimate of 7.5 million Jewish Americans is consistent with other recent demographic studies of the population. Their conclusions about a growing US Jewish population suggest a new narrative of American Jewish life that reflects the diversity of ways in which Jewish identity is expressed.
Journal Article
According to Whose Numbers? Assessing the Pew Research Center’s Estimate of 7.5 Million Jewish Americans
Differences of opinion regarding the numerical size of US Jewry are discussed in this article, with special reference to the 2020 Pew survey of Jewish Americans. Issues discussed involve understanding the theoretical assumptions, technical requirements, and accumulated body of knowledge of Jewish demography and population studies as a discipline; the different methods and biases of Jewish social survey research; the variety of possible Jewish population definitions in a world which is no more dichotomous; the essential role children's Jewish socialization in Jewish population estimates; the independence vs. circularity of existing Jewish population estimates. It is argued that different possible estimates can coexist side-by-side, provided assumptions, methods and definitions are fully transparent and amenable to clear common denominators. The study of US Jews cannot be severed from the study of Jews globally.
Journal Article
The American Marketplace
Demographics and spending patterns of American consumers in one handy volume.
eBook
Improving the American Community Survey
Since its origin 23 years ago as a pilot test conducted in four U.S. counties, the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) has been the focus of continuous research, development, and refinement. The survey cleared critical milestones 14 years ago when it began full-scale operations, including comprehensive nationwide coverage, and 5 years later when the ACS replaced a long-form sample questionnaire in the 2010 census as a source of detailed demographic and socioeconomic information. Throughout that existence and continuing today, ACS research and testing has worked to improve the survey's conduct in the face of challenges ranging from detailed and procedural to the broad and existential.
This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion at the September 26-27, 2018, Workshop on Improving the American Community Survey (ACS), sponsored by the U.S. Census Bureau. Workshop participants explored uses of administrative records and third-party data to improve ACS operations and potential for boosting respondent participation through improved communication.
eBook
Realizing the Potential of the American Community Survey
The American Community Survey (ACS) was conceptualized as a replacement to the census long form, which collected detailed population and housing data from a sample of the U.S. population, once a decade, as part of the decennial census operations. The long form was traditionally the main source of socio-economic information for areas below the national level. The data provided for small areas, such as counties, municipalities, and neighborhoods is what made the long form unique, and what makes the ACS unique today. Since the successful transition from the decennial long form in 2005, the ACS has become an invaluable resource for many stakeholders, particularly for meeting national and state level data needs. However, due to inadequate sample sizes, a major challenge for the survey is producing reliable estimates for smaller geographic areas, which is a concern because of the unique role fulfilled by the long form, and now the ACS, of providing data with a geographic granularity that no other federal survey could provide. In addition to the primary challenge associated with the reliability of the estimates, this is also a good time to assess other aspects of the survey in order to identify opportunities for refinement based on the experience of the first few years.
Realizing the Potential of the American Community Survey provides input on ways of improving the ACS, focusing on two priority areas: identifying methods that could improve the quality of the data available for small areas, and suggesting changes that would increase the survey's efficiency in responding to new data needs. This report considers changes that the ACS office should consider over the course of the next few years in order to further improve the ACS data. The recommendations of Realizing the Potential of the American Community Survey will help the Census Bureau improve performance in several areas, which may ultimately lead to improved data products as the survey enters its next decade.
eBook