Abstract
The debate over whether turn-of-the-century immigrants were influenced more by their cultural heritage or by their socioeconomic circumstances when deciding to send their children either to school or to work, serves to illustrate the interplay between theory and evidence in the research process. The authors examine how ethnicity, the local economy, and the family economy affected children's participation in school and work. Using cost-of-living data from 1888-1890, they find that the effects of ethnicity on children's school participation were attenuated by local and family economy factors, and in some cases ethnic group coefficients no longer differed significantly from those of Yankees. The significant effects of ethnicity on children's work participation, however, persisted even when local and family economy factors were taken into consideration.
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