4 ms·

Could I get an explanation as to why the Jews are in the higher income brackets?

by chegra 16y ago

nazgulnarsil 16y ago
strong cultural norms that are education and success oriented along with high IQ's. edit: before I get people bitching at me http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/06/high_iq_does_no.html http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/06/high_iq_does_no.html
- martin 16y ago
  Also, the fact that they (okay, we) are concentrated in large cities like New York where wages for professional jobs are above national averages could drive the numbers up.
  - endtime 16y ago
    That wouldn't explain why the other ethnic groups also prevalent in New York don't have comparable wages there.
- wyclif 16y ago
  Also an emphasis on the importance of family and how that relates to business, e.g. handing down family owned businesses to sons.
  - beefman 16y ago
    Also an emphasis on having your family be genetically related to you; hence your increased willingness to hand down the business, and their more likely ability to take it up.
- borism 16y ago
  edit: before I get people bitching at me http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/06/high_iq_does_no.html http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/06/high_iq_does_no.html this is a great link since we had this argument here before with about half HNers thinking that income somehow correlates to IQ. however this link doesn't explain why you think jews (as practitioners of judaism, not as a nationality) have higher IQs?
  - imesh 16y ago
    Because people who are practitioners are 90% of the time, also ethnically Jews.
    - borism 16y ago
      90% of Judaism practitioners have higher IQ because they're jews. Makes sense...
  - Kadin 16y ago
    While not all practitioners of the Jewish religion are ethnically Jews (Ashkenazim, Sephardim, etc.) and vice versa, there's certainly a very strong correlation. That's certainly enough to produce an apparent religious-IQ linkage, if indeed there's a ethnic-IQ linkage. (It doesn't, of course, say anything about causation.) You could similarly link the Hindu religion to dark hair, or other genetic traits common among ethnic groups who have a high percentage of Hindu practitioners. It wouldn't be true all the time, but it would probably show a significant correlation.
  - endtime 16y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_intelligence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_intelligence
    - guelo 16y ago
      Wow, I had heard of and thought there might be something to the IQ studies that show Ashkenazi Jews as smarter but now that I see the supposed evidence on that Wikipedia page I'm just laughing. If those 4 studies are the best proof they can come up with then I'm left to believe this is all part of some jewish propaganda.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
- cxseven 16y ago
  As the link states, they've controlled for education (degree earned) and then measured IQ with a vocabulary test; as a result they hypothesize that students who are verbally-inclined might be earning degrees in less profitable fields. If you look at the data included with the GRE CD, you can see the same trend: those who perform spectacularly on the verbal portion are philosophy majors and the like. How much would you expect their average salary to be? No doubt it's significantly less than for most engineers, who don't verbally perform as well, but hit close to the (low) ceiling of the math portion. Income vs. verbal IQ within the same education class is probably all over the map because of this, and no doubt significantly confounded wrt cause-and-effect. On the other hand, I would expect there to be a strong benefit to verbal intelligence within each profession. TLDR: The link hardly proves that a higher IQ does not cause higher income.
cookiecaper 16y ago
From a Biblical perspective, the blessing of Jacob upon Judah in Genesis 49:11-12 is thusly rendered: "...he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes: His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.", which is that Judah should be prosperous temporally.
myth_drannon 16y ago
The hint to that is also in the Orthodox distribution. Why from all the Christian denominations they are the wealthiest? I think that big part of Jewish and Orthodox populations comes from ex-Soviet republics. Strong emphasis on education back over there and immigrant need to prove themselves will cause such skewed statistics. You know what more? I think the Jewish stats are brought down by Orthodox Jews that have +10 kids and spend their lives studying Torah and don't worry that much about making money( I understand that some Muslims and Christians are like that but it's less common ).
- zppx 16y ago
  I would love if the Orthodox were divided by background, i.e. Arabs, Greeks, Russians, Romanians, etc. But maybe I'm asking too much.
- endtime 16y ago
  >I think that big part of Jewish...populations comes from ex-Soviet republics. I'm not sure about this. Most ex-Soviet Jews went to Israel, I believe. I think the vast majority of Jews in America have west-European roots.
- Yzupnick 16y ago
  Being a part of the Orthodox Jewish community, I'm not so sure this is true. I live in NY, and while my experience is largely anecdotal, it is very rare for me to meet an Ex-Soviet, and I'm pretty confident I can say that I've come in contact with a significant percentage of the other Orthodox kids my age when I was in High School (three years ago.) The truth is the Orthodox Jewish community pushes education a very much. In the Modern Orthodox community this translates into both Academic and Torah learning. While in the Ultra Orthodox communities, this often times (not always) translates into learning Torah for most if not all of the day. It is also very expensive to live an Orthodox Jewish life. Kosher food is more expensive, living in an Orthodox community is more expensive, and Jewish private school tuition is a minimum of $19,000 a year per kid for high school. It is pretty much a prerequesite to make over a hundred thousand in order to live in the Orthodox community.
oiuytuikolikuhy 16y ago
Take the distribution for any other religion and only include those who live in a few major east coast cities. So include 'christians' who are executives in NY but ignore all the ones pumping gas in the mid-west. Then leave out the less succesfull ones who don't identify themselves as part of that group.
john321 16y ago
In addition to the importance of education, Jews in Europe were not allowed to own land which made them instead strong in business/trade etc.
- detst 16y ago
  My recollection of history is not great but I believe that in feudal times this is true. But the interesting part is that they were granted rights in business that others were not given. So it wasn't simply that they had to compensate in other areas as a result of not being allowed to own land, but that they had rights that others didn't.
  - imesh 16y ago
    They could lend money, whereas Christians couldn't, and since they couldn't own property, there was a time where most Jews in Europe where money lenders (AKA, bankers), no wonder they are still good with the money.
giardini 16y ago
Perhaps to some degree because of the nature of the evolutionary pressures on them over the centuries? The Jews have almost always had extraordinary pressures, e.g., killed outright (e.g., Nazi Germany), restricted from owning land (e.g., Venice, Spain). Among their responses to the first was to migrate and, to the second, to move into commerce, moneylending, finance, etc. If your group is dealing with pressures that another population is not exposed to, then your group's survivors will better deal with that pressure. If, at the same time, that pressure becomes more widespread in a society, then your group also benefits from that. That is, the Jews were involved in commerce and market economies earlier than other groups on average. Of course this isn't everything. Consider the European gypsies. Certainly they suffered many, if not most, of the same pressures as the Jews, but their current situation is comparatively grim.
- rgejman 16y ago
  Evolution does not typically work at those timescales (100-200 generations) unless there is extreme pressure—and even if it did, your argument still would not apply unless you believe that success in moneylending and other professions were strongly influenced by genetics. There is no evidence for that position and there is only limited evidence that IQ and other measures of general intelligence are genetic (socioeconomic background tend to be much better indicators of this). I think the more likely explanation is cultural. Yes, Jews were forced into certain professions, but they have also historically emphasized (religious) education. As Jews in the Western world became more assimilated, the emphasis on religion decreased, but the emphasis on education did not. This familial emphasis on education is still felt today and has manifested itself as a propensity for Jews to enter highly skilled professions, such as law and medicine.
  - beefman 16y ago
    > Evolution does not typically work at those timescales (100-200 generations) Not true.
  - giardini 16y ago
    1. Evolution works at all timescales greater than a lifetime. 2. The Jews _were_ under extreme pressure: people apparently felt free to kill them, persecute them, rape them, wipe them out. What could be more extreme? 3. Yes, culture would help. But it would also speed genetic change as Jews increasingly moved into an ecological niche defined by a particular set of abilities (e.g., counting, visualization, quantification, pattern recognition, concept formation) used in fields such as finance.
Aloisius 16y ago
Some people are going to say intelligence (pshaw), but... The only acceptable professions to Jewish mothers are doctor, lawyer and maybe investment banker. On top of that, there are extreme social pressures to succeed. Add a tight knit community and blamo, generations of high paid Jews. Seriously, culture has a far greater impact on success than intelligence.

Could I get an explanation as to why the Jews are in the higher income brackets?

by chegra 16y ago

Could I get an explanation as to why the Jews are in the higher income brackets?

strong cultural norms that are education and success oriented along with high IQ's. edit: before I get people bitching at me http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/06/high_iq_does_no.html http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/06/high_iq_does_no.html

martin 16y ago
Also, the fact that they (okay, we) are concentrated in large cities like New York where wages for professional jobs are above national averages could drive the numbers up.
- endtime 16y ago
  That wouldn't explain why the other ethnic groups also prevalent in New York don't have comparable wages there.
wyclif 16y ago
Also an emphasis on the importance of family and how that relates to business, e.g. handing down family owned businesses to sons.
- beefman 16y ago
  Also an emphasis on having your family be genetically related to you; hence your increased willingness to hand down the business, and their more likely ability to take it up.
borism 16y ago
edit: before I get people bitching at me http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/06/high_iq_does_no.html http://www.halfsigma.com/2006/06/high_iq_does_no.html this is a great link since we had this argument here before with about half HNers thinking that income somehow correlates to IQ. however this link doesn't explain why you think jews (as practitioners of judaism, not as a nationality) have higher IQs?
- imesh 16y ago
  Because people who are practitioners are 90% of the time, also ethnically Jews.
  - borism 16y ago
    90% of Judaism practitioners have higher IQ because they're jews. Makes sense...
- Kadin 16y ago
  While not all practitioners of the Jewish religion are ethnically Jews (Ashkenazim, Sephardim, etc.) and vice versa, there's certainly a very strong correlation. That's certainly enough to produce an apparent religious-IQ linkage, if indeed there's a ethnic-IQ linkage. (It doesn't, of course, say anything about causation.) You could similarly link the Hindu religion to dark hair, or other genetic traits common among ethnic groups who have a high percentage of Hindu practitioners. It wouldn't be true all the time, but it would probably show a significant correlation.
- endtime 16y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_intelligence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_intelligence
  - guelo 16y ago
    Wow, I had heard of and thought there might be something to the IQ studies that show Ashkenazi Jews as smarter but now that I see the supposed evidence on that Wikipedia page I'm just laughing. If those 4 studies are the best proof they can come up with then I'm left to believe this is all part of some jewish propaganda.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
cxseven 16y ago
As the link states, they've controlled for education (degree earned) and then measured IQ with a vocabulary test; as a result they hypothesize that students who are verbally-inclined might be earning degrees in less profitable fields. If you look at the data included with the GRE CD, you can see the same trend: those who perform spectacularly on the verbal portion are philosophy majors and the like. How much would you expect their average salary to be? No doubt it's significantly less than for most engineers, who don't verbally perform as well, but hit close to the (low) ceiling of the math portion. Income vs. verbal IQ within the same education class is probably all over the map because of this, and no doubt significantly confounded wrt cause-and-effect. On the other hand, I would expect there to be a strong benefit to verbal intelligence within each profession. TLDR: The link hardly proves that a higher IQ does not cause higher income.

cookiecaper 16y ago

From a Biblical perspective, the blessing of Jacob upon Judah in Genesis 49:11-12 is thusly rendered: "...he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes: His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.", which is that Judah should be prosperous temporally.

myth_drannon 16y ago

The hint to that is also in the Orthodox distribution. Why from all the Christian denominations they are the wealthiest? I think that big part of Jewish and Orthodox populations comes from ex-Soviet republics. Strong emphasis on education back over there and immigrant need to prove themselves will cause such skewed statistics. You know what more? I think the Jewish stats are brought down by Orthodox Jews that have +10 kids and spend their lives studying Torah and don't worry that much about making money( I understand that some Muslims and Christians are like that but it's less common ).

zppx 16y ago
I would love if the Orthodox were divided by background, i.e. Arabs, Greeks, Russians, Romanians, etc. But maybe I'm asking too much.
endtime 16y ago
>I think that big part of Jewish...populations comes from ex-Soviet republics. I'm not sure about this. Most ex-Soviet Jews went to Israel, I believe. I think the vast majority of Jews in America have west-European roots.
Yzupnick 16y ago
Being a part of the Orthodox Jewish community, I'm not so sure this is true. I live in NY, and while my experience is largely anecdotal, it is very rare for me to meet an Ex-Soviet, and I'm pretty confident I can say that I've come in contact with a significant percentage of the other Orthodox kids my age when I was in High School (three years ago.) The truth is the Orthodox Jewish community pushes education a very much. In the Modern Orthodox community this translates into both Academic and Torah learning. While in the Ultra Orthodox communities, this often times (not always) translates into learning Torah for most if not all of the day. It is also very expensive to live an Orthodox Jewish life. Kosher food is more expensive, living in an Orthodox community is more expensive, and Jewish private school tuition is a minimum of $19,000 a year per kid for high school. It is pretty much a prerequesite to make over a hundred thousand in order to live in the Orthodox community.

oiuytuikolikuhy 16y ago

Take the distribution for any other religion and only include those who live in a few major east coast cities. So include 'christians' who are executives in NY but ignore all the ones pumping gas in the mid-west. Then leave out the less succesfull ones who don't identify themselves as part of that group.

john321 16y ago

In addition to the importance of education, Jews in Europe were not allowed to own land which made them instead strong in business/trade etc.

detst 16y ago
My recollection of history is not great but I believe that in feudal times this is true. But the interesting part is that they were granted rights in business that others were not given. So it wasn't simply that they had to compensate in other areas as a result of not being allowed to own land, but that they had rights that others didn't.
- imesh 16y ago
  They could lend money, whereas Christians couldn't, and since they couldn't own property, there was a time where most Jews in Europe where money lenders (AKA, bankers), no wonder they are still good with the money.

giardini 16y ago

Perhaps to some degree because of the nature of the evolutionary pressures on them over the centuries? The Jews have almost always had extraordinary pressures, e.g., killed outright (e.g., Nazi Germany), restricted from owning land (e.g., Venice, Spain). Among their responses to the first was to migrate and, to the second, to move into commerce, moneylending, finance, etc. If your group is dealing with pressures that another population is not exposed to, then your group's survivors will better deal with that pressure. If, at the same time, that pressure becomes more widespread in a society, then your group also benefits from that. That is, the Jews were involved in commerce and market economies earlier than other groups on average. Of course this isn't everything. Consider the European gypsies. Certainly they suffered many, if not most, of the same pressures as the Jews, but their current situation is comparatively grim.

rgejman 16y ago
Evolution does not typically work at those timescales (100-200 generations) unless there is extreme pressure—and even if it did, your argument still would not apply unless you believe that success in moneylending and other professions were strongly influenced by genetics. There is no evidence for that position and there is only limited evidence that IQ and other measures of general intelligence are genetic (socioeconomic background tend to be much better indicators of this). I think the more likely explanation is cultural. Yes, Jews were forced into certain professions, but they have also historically emphasized (religious) education. As Jews in the Western world became more assimilated, the emphasis on religion decreased, but the emphasis on education did not. This familial emphasis on education is still felt today and has manifested itself as a propensity for Jews to enter highly skilled professions, such as law and medicine.
- beefman 16y ago
  > Evolution does not typically work at those timescales (100-200 generations) Not true.
- giardini 16y ago
  1. Evolution works at all timescales greater than a lifetime. 2. The Jews _were_ under extreme pressure: people apparently felt free to kill them, persecute them, rape them, wipe them out. What could be more extreme? 3. Yes, culture would help. But it would also speed genetic change as Jews increasingly moved into an ecological niche defined by a particular set of abilities (e.g., counting, visualization, quantification, pattern recognition, concept formation) used in fields such as finance.

Aloisius 16y ago

Some people are going to say intelligence (pshaw), but... The only acceptable professions to Jewish mothers are doctor, lawyer and maybe investment banker. On top of that, there are extreme social pressures to succeed. Add a tight knit community and blamo, generations of high paid Jews. Seriously, culture has a far greater impact on success than intelligence.