Social and Demographic Aspects of Jewish Intermarriages

Abstract

jority through assimilation are heavy. As one aspect of the assimilation process, the nature and amount of intermarriage between members of a minority and members of the majority are of crucial importance to the social and demographic future of the minority. If marital assimilation takes place at a high rate, the minority group faces the threat of losing its ethnic identity in the larger society as the descendants of the original minority group become increasingly indistinguishable from the members of the majority.' Until recently, studies of intermarriage in the United States have shown that the Jewish group has been remarkably successful, compared to other groups, in maintaining religious endogamy.2 Yet, the general paucity of good data and suggestions that the rate of intermarriage may be changing rapidly make it desirable to take advantage of new sources of information as they become available. This report focuses on the extent and character of Jewish intermarriage in the Providence, Rhode Island, metropolitan area and examines its significance for the future of the Jewish group. The only national data available on intermarriage are the results of the 1957 Current Population Survey conducted by the Bureau of the Census which found that 7.2 per cent of existing marriages in which at least one spouse was Jewish had a non-Jewish partner. This compared to an intermarriage rate of 9 per cent for Protestants and 21 per cent for Catholics.8 However, estimates of the rate of Jewish intermarriages based on local studies of varied quality range as high as 17.2 per cent for San Francisco, 18.4 per cent for New York City and 53.6 per cent for Iowa.4 These estimates may reflect regional variation of the overall national rate or may foreshadow the future national rate.