The changing roles of human capital, state context of residence, and ethnic bonds in interstate migration: American Jews 1970-1990

Motivated by the gap left by the census, which does not enquire into matters of creed, this study examines the changing role of internal migration determinants among American Jews. Multivariate analysis of data from the 1970/1 and 1990 National Jewish Population Surveys, to which contextual measures were attached, shows a decline over time in the importance of human capital in explaining five-year interstate migration, while environmental amenity receives increasing consideration; at the same time, ethnic concentration continues to deter migration between states. Ethnic processes have lost much of their power as predictors of future migration. I propose two alternative interpretations of these apparently contradictory findings, and discuss them in the wider context of white ethnicity in America.