From Immigration To Integration
The Canadian Jewish Experience:
A Millennium Edition
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From Immigration To IntegrationThe Canadian Jewish Experience:
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James Torczyner
The Canadian Jewish community enters the millennium with a greater sense of security, prosperity, and accomplishment than at any other time in its history. It has seen its population grow exponentially, and take root across Canada (see Table 1). It has sent its children to university and enjoyed substantial prosperity. And it has established major Jewish centres, and contributed to international Jewish life.
At the same time, however, not all Jews enjoy this prosperity or belong to the mainstream. Almost one in six lived below the poverty line in 1991. Intermarriage rates, although not as high as those in the United States, are growing and, in certain communities, have surged. The number of single-parent families continues to rise, as do the numbers of elderly people who live alone. Much of the expansion of the Jewish population has been due to immigration, which has introduced different cultural subgroups into the mix. How do all these “non-mainstream” groups fit into Canada’s contemporary Jewish mosaic, and how are their concerns articulated on local and national agendas?
New concerns have emerged as part of the mainstream debate toward the end of the twentieth century. Increasingly, children are called upon to support their parents - who live longer than previous generations - as well as their own children, who pursue advanced education and are consequently dependent for longer periods of time. In the increasingly prevalent two-career families, often professional and highly pressured, there is less time for Jewish communal involvement. How will these directions influence Jewish family and communal life?
The increased mobility of Canadian Jewish families affects both the communities that are left behind, as well as the new communities that are joined. How will local communities respond to these challenges, and what are the national implications?
These demographic forces shape the national agenda of Canadian Jews and will have an impact on each family and community. This essay reviews the demographic transformation of Canadian Jewry at the close of the twentieth century, and points to its potential influence on Jewish life in the new millennium.
Data for this essay was obtained entirely from the 1991 census. McGill University, Statistics Canada, and the Council of Jewish Federations jointly established a database for both the 1981 and 1991 censuses and published a twelve-volume study that details the demographic characteristics of Jews both nationally and in eleven communities across Canada. Although somewhat dated today, it remains the most comprehensive database available on Jews anywhere in the world, outside of the State of Israel. A brief explanation of how Jews are defined in census terms provides the context for understanding the data presented.
There are two questions in the 1991 census by which Jews can be identified. The first is, “To which ethnic or cultural group(s) did your ancestors belong?” The second is, “To which religion or denomination do you belong?”
Respondents to the census are permitted to choose only one religion, although they may choose up to four ethnic affiliations. These ethnic responses, however, are not reported in order of priority. Consequently, one can only make note of the number of people who selected “Jewish“ as their ethnicity in conjunction with other ethnic choices that they may have indicated.
In consultation with various Jewish federations and national Jewish organizations, the following definition of Jews was developed from the census data: “A Jew is someone who identifies him/herself as being ‘Jewish by religion,’ or ‘Jewish by religion and Jewish by ethnic origin,’ or ‘Jewish by ethnic origin with no religion.’”
Thus, the only group excluded from our analysis relates to people who identified themselves as Jewish ethnically, but with a religion other than Jewish. Jews by religion, ethnic Jews, and secular Jews with no religious affiliation are all included in this definition.
These two questions are asked every ten years. The mid-census, last administered in 1996, does not ask about religion and, therefore, cannot adequately identify the number of Canadian Jews or their essential characteristics.
This analysis is limited to those questions that the census asks. Information regarding attitudes, beliefs, Jewish practices, and matrilineal relationships are not available and, as a result, we have no information with regard to these important dimensions of Jewish life. Other essays in this volume address some of these concerns.
By the preceding census definition, there were 365,315 Jews in Canada in 1991. This represents an actual growth rate of 14.2 per cent, and an increase of 44,215 Jews from the previous decade. Growth rates, however, varied for Jewish communities across Canada. Vancouver experienced the largest percentage increase in its Jewish population (31 per cent), while Toronto outdistanced all other Jewish communities in terms of its actual gain in numbers. The Toronto Jewish community increased by more than 33,000, which represents a growth rate of 26.4 per cent. Clearly, Toronto has become the demographic centre of Canadian Jewry. Almost half of all Jews in Canada (45.6 per cent) lived in Toronto in 1991. Smaller Jewish centres such as Ottawa and Halifax increased in size by more than 20 per cent (see Table 2).
Canadian Jewish communities as a whole experienced a net gain in population in the ten-year period between 1981 and 1991, except for Montreal, Winnipeg, and Windsor, and the losses for Montreal and Winnipeg were far less than had been expected or previously reported (decreases of 2.1 per cent and 6.2 per cent respectively).
Generally speaking, changes in the size of Jewish communities patterned changes in Canadian cities as a whole. Urban centres such as Toronto, Vancouver, and Ottawa, which experienced growth rates of between 28 per cent and 31 per cent in the past ten years, also experienced comparable increases in their Jewish communities. The cities that had relatively small overall growth rates, such as Montreal, Windsor, and Winnipeg, are the same ones that lost Jewish population in the last decade.
Changes in the size of Jewish communities are functions of complex and often competing processes. Immigrants, migrants from other parts of Canada, births, converts, and people who renew their identification as Jews account for most increases in population size. Out-migration, emigration, deaths, marrying out, or ceasing one’s identification account for most population losses. Some of these factors are measured by the census. Immigration and migration are two such factors and they have had a significant effect on population changes in the Canadian Jewish community in the last decade.
Previous essays have described the contributions of immigrants to Canadian Jewish life as well as the challenges they have faced. Less appreciated today are the significant ways in which immigrants affect Jewish communal life. About one in six Jews were immigrants to Canada between the years 1971 and 1991, and this is almost twice the percentage of immigrants in the Canadian population as a whole, which is 8.9 per cent. More than 30,000 Jews immigrated to Canada between 1980 and 1990, and these people represent 8.75 per cent of the Canadian Jewish community.
Jewish immigrants settled primarily in the main Jewish centres of Toronto and Montreal in the years 1981-91. Close to 80 per cent of all Jewish immigrants moved to these cities (16,855 to Toronto and 6,785 to Montreal). In Toronto, these immigrants account for close to half the Jewish growth rate in the past decade. In Montreal, immigrants counteracted what would otherwise have been a more drastic population loss.
Smaller Jewish centres received fewer Jewish immigrants. Halifax, Hamilton, and Ottawa received less than five hundred immigrants each in the last decade, and these people accounted for less than 5 per cent of the Jewish community in these cities. Other smaller Jewish centres had much higher rates of immigration. One in eight Jews in Edmonton and Calgary arrived in Canada in the past decade and this has important implications for Jewish communal planning.
One in four Jews who immigrated to Canada between 1981 and 1991 was born in the former Soviet Union. Israel was the second most frequently cited place of birth for Jewish immigrants and accounted for 20 per cent of the total. Together, almost half of all Jewish immigrants to Canada in the past decade were born in the Soviet Union or Israel. One in four Jews who immigrated to Canada between 1981 and 1991 was born in the United States or in South Africa (14 per cent and 11 per cent respectively - see Table 3).
Holocaust survivors were defined in census terms as people who were born prior to 1945 in countries that were occupied by the Nazis and who immigrated to Canada after 1939. Thus, we used three sets of census data: place of birth, year of immigration, and age. For, example, if a person was seventy-five in 1991, immigrated to Canada in 1949, and was born in Poland, we can quite accurately assume that he or she is a Holocaust survivor.
There are some obvious limitations to the definition. People who left their countries of origin before World War II, before the Nazi occupation, and arrived in Canada from safe countries, cannot be accurately tracked by this method. For example, someone who was born in Germany, but emigrated to the United States before the war and only arrived in Canada in 1951, will still be considered a Holocaust survivor by our definition, but will not be included in our count. Furthermore, in order to retrieve uniform information, the earliest year of immigration to Canada was set at 1939. This means that, although Austrian and German Jews became victims of Nazi terror as early as 1933, the few who managed to escape to Canada between 1933 and 1939 have also been omitted from this count. Despite these limitations, however, the present definition applies census methodology to an understanding of the demography of Holocaust survivors for the first time.
Overall, there were over 27,000 Holocaust survivors in Canada in 1991, representing 7.7 per cent of the total Jewish population. Close to one third of all survivors lived in Montreal and 46.8 per cent lived in Toronto. Poland, the USSR, Romania, and Hungary represent the four largest sources of Holocaust survivors in Canada. Most Holocaust survivors today are elderly, with more than 70 per cent over the age of sixty-five. Child survivors represent the balance. In 1991, they ranged from as young as forty-six - if born in the final year of World War II - to sixty-two years of age.
Identifying Sephardic Jews from the census is a complex task. The only accurate basis to do so would be if respondents were given the opportunity to indicate on the census form if they are Sephardi or Ashkenazi Jews. Unfortunately, the census does not allow for this possibility, and, therefore, our task is more circumspect. We can only make inferences from the data regarding Sephardic identity.
There are three questions on the census that can be used in identifying Sephardic Jews: place of birth, mother tongue, and year of immigration. Each of these is problematic. Places of birth that are likely to be Sephardic include Middle Eastern countries and North Africa. However, does one incorporate immigrants from such countries as France and Israel, where approximately half of the Jewish population is Sephardic? Furthermore, how does one identify children born in Canada or the United States to North African parents? What about children who have one parent who is Turkish and the other who is Austrian, a not uncommon result of the Turkish-Austrian alliances earlier in this century.
Mother tongue may be a second indicator of Sephardic identity. Jews who indicated that their mother tongue is Spanish or Arabic are likely to be Sephardim - but these people are a small minority in the Jewish community. Many people associate a mother tongue of French with being Sephardic, but Jews from France and Belgium, whose mother tongue is French, may or may not be Sephardic. And what of people whose mother tongue is Hebrew, half of whom may be of Sephardic origin or Jews born in Iraq, where French was hardly spoken?
The period of immigration is a third factor that can be used to approximate how many Canadian Jews are Sephardic. The major Sephardic immigration to Canada occurred between 1958 and the mid-1970s, so looking at the date of immigration can further help pinpoint those Jews whose mother tongue is French and who are Sephardic. However, this approach is also constrained by population movements, before and after this period, that affect Sephardic Jewry.
In census terms, we have developed a range that approximates the number of Sephardic Jews in Canada based on data regarding places of birth and mother tongue. Acknowledging the limitations of the data, we estimate that there were between 18,870 and 25,805 Sephardic Jews living in Canada in 1991. The lower range is based on the places of birth, and the upper range is based on mother-tongue data.
By either definition, 75 to 80 per cent of all Sephardim in Canada lived in Montreal. In order to focus this discussion, given the centrality of the Sephardic population to Montreal Jewish life, the subsequent analysis examines only Sephardim in Montreal.
Jews with a mother tongue of French or Hebrew are considerably younger than the Jewish community as a whole. Almost a quarter of Jews whose mother tongue was French (22.7 per cent) and whose mother tongue was Hebrew (23.7 per cent) were under the age of fourteen in 1991. This compares with a 19 per cent average for all Jews in Montreal. Similarly, only one in ten Jews whose mother tongue is French and only 6 per cent whose mother tongue is Hebrew were over the age of sixty-five in 1991. The corresponding figure for all Montreal Jews was 22.4 per cent.
Moroccan-born Jews tend to have larger families. Forty-four per cent of all households headed by someone born in Morocco consisted of four or more people. The corresponding figure for all Montreal Jewish households was only half this figure - 22.1 per cent. A similar pattern emerges when looking at households headed by people whose mother tongue is French or Hebrew. Approximately one third of all French as mother-tongue households (32.6 per cent) and all Hebrew as mother-tongue households (34.2 per cent) consisted of four or more people.
Jews with a mother tongue of French had somewhat lower levels of education than the Montreal Jewish average. Forty-two per cent of all Jews were either currently enrolled in university or had completed at least a bachelor’s degree in 1991. Thirty-six per cent of those whose mother tongue was French had achieved the same levels of education. Fewer Jews whose mother tongue is French may be in university because, having recently immigrated, they have had to defer higher education.
Jews whose mother tongue is French also had smaller incomes than the Montreal Jewish community as a whole, and these differences were most noticeable at both the high and low ends of the income range. Almost twice as many members of the Montreal Jewish community generally had incomes greater than $75,000 in 1991 compared to Jews whose mother tongue is French (9.1 per cent versus 5 per cent). Similarly, 37.8 per cent of Jews in the group whose mother tongue was French earned less than $10,000, compared with 31.3 per cent of the entire Montreal Jewish community age fifteen and over who lived in families. Poverty levels were higher as well. One in four Jews born in Morocco or Israel lived below the poverty line in 1991. For the community as a whole, one in five was poor.
The age structure of the Jewish community in Canada continues to undergo a transformation as it reflects broader demographic changes. The percentage of children in the Jewish community, for example, increased significantly between 1981 and 1991, with one in five Jews being under the age of fourteen in 1991. The fifteen to thirty-four age group declined by more than 7 per cent, while the thirty-five to fifty-four age group increased by 6 per cent during this time period.
The Jewish community continues to age, but this trend may level off temporarily at the turn of the century. Just over 17 per cent of all Jews (17.3 per cent) were over the age of sixty-five in 1991 and these figures represent a 1.5 per cent increase from the previous decade. At the same time, the percentage of Jews aged fifty-five to sixty-four dropped substantially from 11.8 per cent of the Jewish population in 1981 to 8.4 per cent in 1991. This “pre-retirement” age group now commands a smaller percentage of the Jewish community than it does of the Canadian population as a whole.
The age structure of the Jewish community increasingly resembles that of the overall Canadian population. However, Jews have experienced an increase in the percentage of children in their community, while the Canadian population has experienced a drop in this age group. The net effect was that in 1991, 21 per cent of all people in both the Jewish and Canadian populations were under fourteen.
The Canadian population is also becoming more middle-aged and has experienced similar shifts from the fifteen to thirty-four age group to the thirty-five to fifty-four age group. However, it does remain significantly younger than the Jewish community, with almost one in three Canadians between the ages of fifteen and thirty-four in 1991. Fifty-three per cent of all Canadians were under the age of thirty-five, while the comparable percentage among Jews was 46 per cent.
The Canadian population as a whole is aging. The percentage of people aged sixty-five and over grew from 8.9 per cent in 1981 to 10.8 per cent in 1991. It appears that the Canadian population may be aging more rapidly than the Jewish population at the turn of the twenty-first century. The Canadian population between fifty-five and sixty-four is somewhat larger than that of the Jewish community. And, while the Jewish community experienced a 3.5 per cent reduction in this age category, the overall Canadian figure in 1991 remained exactly where it had been in 1981 at 8.9 per cent of the total population.
The elderly in Canada are more likely to be women than men (54.2 per cent versus 45.8 per cent). This tendency becomes stronger with the advancing years. Over half (51.4 per cent) of all Jews between the ages of fifty-five and sixty-four were women. In the sixty-five to seventy-four age group, the percentage rises to 53 per cent and for those aged seventy-five and over, 55.6 per cent were women. Table 4 outlines the age structure of Canadian Jewry in 1981 and in 1991.
Communities that lost population in the past ten years have both a higher percentage of older people and a lower percentage of young people. Winnipeg, Montreal, and Windsor have higher than average percentages of older people, with 23.9 per cent, 22.4 per cent, and 18.6 per cent of the Jewish populations of these respective cities over the age of sixty-five in 1991. The differences at the younger age level are not only explained by patterns of overall growth. Certain cities tend to attract young families. London, Edmonton, Calgary, and Ottawa are examples of this pattern and almost one in four Jews in these cities is under the age of fourteen.
There is increased diversity in living arrangements among Jews today, as there is in Canadian society as a whole. Still, most Jews live in traditional family structures, and more than three quarters of all Jews lived in husband-and-wife families in 1991. Another 7 per cent lived in single-parent families, with 80 per cent of these families headed by women. Altogether, single-parent families accounted for more than 25,000 Jews in Canada in 1991. One in seven Jews lived alone (14 per cent).
Jews and Canadians generally have similar numbers of children, reversing previous trends in which Canadians as a whole tended to have much larger families than Jews. In the closing decades of the twentieth century, however, Canadians are having fewer children, while Jews are having more.
Similarly, the number of single-parent families is on the rise in both the Jewish and Canadian populations, although single-parent households are more frequent in the Canadian population. Nevertheless, more than 10,000 children lived with only one parent in the Jewish community in 1991 and these represented more than one in ten Canadian Jews under the age of nineteen.
Nationally, single-parent families comprise a smaller percentage of all Jewish families than they do of Canadian families as a whole (8.5 per cent versus 10.4 per cent). This pattern is consistent across Canada with the exception of Vancouver. In this city, a higher percentage of people lived in single-parent families in the Jewish community than in the Vancouver population as a whole (10.5 per cent versus 9.7 per cent). Table 5 demonstrates these findings.
Information on intermarriage was retrieved from the census by analyzing the characteristics of Jews who lived in families where at least one adult was not Jewish, by the standard definition used throughout this study. This definition is based on self-reporting, and it is not possible in the census to distinguish between Jews by birth and those who became Jews by choice. Findings from the 1991 census indicate that intermarriage rates, while substantially lower than in the United States, have gone up in every major Jewish centre. Nationally, 13 per cent of all Jews lived in intermarried families in 1991, and they accounted for 46,000 people. This represents an increase of 33 per cent over the previous decade.
Rates of intermarriage fluctuated widely across Canada. Montreal had the lowest intermarriage rates at 6.8 per cent, while Vancouver had the highest rates at 24.5 per cent. Table 6 demonstrates levels of intermarriage in Jewish communities in Canada according to the 1981 and 1991 census.
What accounts for the dramatic differences and percentage change in intermarriage rates across Canada? It appears that size, institutional completeness, and population shifts have an important effect on these rates. The two largest Jewish centres - Montreal and Toronto - have the lowest rates of intermarriage while, generally speaking, smaller Jewish population centres have higher rates of intermarriage.
It is difficult to reconcile two competing phenomena in relation to smaller Jewish communities. On the one hand, young Jews who wish to find Jewish partners leave small communities and move to bigger centres, leaving behind those people who are more assimilated and less concerned about this issue. Simultaneously, it has been the smaller communities - along with Toronto - that have experienced rapid growth. It is often young people who move to these centres, and they, too, may be less concerned about marrying another Jew. Sometimes the smallest of samples permits us to observe larger phenomena more clearly. Our data on communities with less than one hundred Jews point to intermarriage rates so high that there is often not a single family wherein both husband and wife are Jewish.
Institutional completeness refers to the number, variety, and nature of institutions in a community. Institutions such as schools, synagogues, and community centres serve as important communal reference points and provide opportunities for individuals to meet and interact. The size of the community has an important impact on institutional completeness. Larger communities have more people and greater resources with which to support institutional life. Communities with a longer history are also likely to have a greater repertoire of institutions. This helps to explain the low levels of intermarriage in Winnipeg, despite the fact that it has fewer Jews than Vancouver.
Rapidly developing communities have fewer institutional resources. Existing resources become strained in attempting to identify new members and respond to their needs. Often people who move to cities with small Jewish populations and few institutional resources do not prioritize their communal affiliation. At best, there is a considerable time lag before rapidly expanding communities can establish a more elaborate institutional framework. Thus, Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton have all experienced rapid growth within a relatively short historical period and have very high rates of intermarriage.
The communities that have lost population - Montreal, Windsor, and Winnipeg - have a higher percentage of elderly people. Intermarriage rates are lower at the upper age ranges, and this also helps to explain lower rates of intermarriage in these cities.
Fifty thousand Jews in Canada lived alone in 1991, representing 14.2 per cent of the Jewish population. A higher proportion of Jews live alone, with the overall Canadian rate at 12.3 per cent in 1991. This is probably attributable to the higher percentage of elderly people in the Jewish community. Of the 61,000 elderly Canadian Jews in 1991, 18,505 lived alone. Thus, while people over the age of sixty-five represented 17.3 per cent of all Jews, twice this percentage of all Jews who lived alone - 37 per cent - were elderly.
The percentage of elderly women who live alone in the Jewish community is quite striking. They constitute 8 per cent of all women, 14 per cent of all people who live alone, 23 per cent of all elderly, and 42 per cent of all elderly women. This pattern is similarly pronounced in the overall Canadian population.
These data represent some of the increasingly diverse living arrangements among Canadian Jews. We now turn to the activities of Jews in the workplace, to examine patterns of education, occupations, and industries in which Jews work.
As a whole, Jews in Canada have achieved a higher degree of prosperity than most Canadians. They have remarkably higher levels of education, larger incomes, and are increasingly employed in the professions. The immigrant experiences of previous generations, when Jewish newcomers worked long hard hours in factories and sweatshops, have been translated into prosperity for most of their children and grandchildren, who have been able to study in universities and enter various professions.
The levels of educational achievement among Canadian Jews is dramatically higher than for the overall Canadian population. One out of every two Jews in Canada age fifteen and over was either enrolled in university or had completed a BA in 1991. This is in contrast to Canadians as a whole, among whom one in five was attending university or had completed an undergraduate degree. At the graduate level, these differential rates of education are even higher. About one in six Jews (16 per cent) had obtained an MA, MD, or PhD in 1991. Among Canadians in general, only one in twenty-five (4 per cent) had attained comparable educational levels (see Table 7).
Higher rates of educational achievement are particularly pronounced in the thirty-five to forty-four age group. One in four Canadians was enrolled in university or had completed a bachelor’s degree in 1991. Among Canadian Jews in this age range, two out of three had comparable levels of education.
Canadian Jews enjoy higher levels of prosperity than Canadians as a whole. This is particularly noticeable at the upper income levels. Four times as many Canadian Jews as Canadians overall earned more than $75,000 in 1991 (10.2 per cent versus 2.6 per cent). As well, fewer Jews fell into the lowest income category. Two out of three Canadians aged fifteen and over earned less than $25,000 in 1991 (65 per cent) while only one in two Jews (53 per cent) had an income in this category.
The strongest income-earning years are between the ages of thirty-five and sixty-four. One in eight Jews between the ages of thirty-five and forty-four earned more than $75,000 in 1991. In this age range, three in ten Jews had incomes over $45,000. Among people younger than thirty-five, the ratio drops to one in ten, while two in ten Jews over the age of sixty-five earned $45,000 or more in 1991.
The central reason for this prosperity among Canadian Jews is the high premium the community has consistently placed on education. It is these remarkably higher educational rates that account for the increased income. For example, 27 per cent of Jews who had obtained a graduate degree earned more than $75,000 in 1991. Only 11 per cent of Canadian Jews attending university or holding a bachelor’s degree were in the high-income category, while only 5 per cent who had not completed high school earned these amounts. Table 8 compares income ranges among Jews in Canada and all Canadians.
In the 1991 census, 172,605 Jews listed an occupation, representing 61.6 per cent of all Jews age fifteen and over. Comparably, 63.4 per cent of all Canadians listed an occupation. Jews were three times more likely than Canadians as a whole to pursue professional occupations in medicine, law, and accounting. They were twice as likely to be managers and administrators, and substantially more likely to hold occupations in the human service professions and in sales.
Jews and Canadians generally are similarly represented in the architectural and engineering professions. There was a higher percentage of clerical workers in the Canadian population as a whole than among Jews, but the largest percentage gap was in the manual trades. Forty-one per cent of all Canadians listed manual labour as their occupation, while only 13 per cent of Jews listed this occupational category (see Table 9).
There are significant differences between Jews and Canadians generally regarding the sectors in which they worked. Jews were three times as likely to work in the business services, clothing, and jewellery industries as the Canadian population as a whole. A higher percentage of Jews was also found in the education and human services industries. On the other hand, Jews were less likely than the Canadian population as a whole to be employed in the food/hotel, construction, and transportation industries, as well as in government services.
Jews had similar overall employment patterns to the Canadian population as a whole. In 1991, 68 per cent of all Canadians and all Jews age fifteen and over were in the labour force. There are important differences, however, in the age structure of the labour force. Jews tend to enter the labour force at the same rate as the Canadian population in general, and almost 80 per cent of all Canadians and of all Jews between the ages of fifteen and thirty-nine were in the labour force in 1991. However, Jews tend to remain in the labour force longer. Twenty-two per cent of all Jews over the age of sixty-five were still in the labour force in 1991, while the corresponding figure for all Canadians aged sixty-five and over was only 9 per cent.
In summary, Jews have dramatically higher rates of educational attainment, tend to earn more, are far more likely to be employed in the “professions,” and stay in the labour force longer. These trends represent the mainstream. However, there are significant groups in the Canadian Jewish community that do not enjoy this prosperity, and there is still substantial inequality between men and women.
Jewish women had lower levels of education than Jewish men. In 1991 51 per cent of all Jewish men were either in university or had completed at least a bachelor’s degree; only 44 per cent of Jewish women had reached the same educational levels. However, the most noticeable difference was in the post-bachelor levels of educational attainment. Twenty per cent of all Jewish men had obtained a graduate degree, compared to 12 per cent of Jewish women.
Nonetheless, Jewish women had higher levels of educational attainment than either men or women in the general Canadian population. The overall rates of educational attainment among Canadian men and women were very similar. Jewish men made up the highest group of educational achievers, followed by Jewish women. Canadian women, generally, had the lowest rates of educational attainment.
Both Jewish women and Canadian women as a whole are under-represented in professional occupations. In the Jewish community, women are under-represented as doctors, surgeons, dentists, architects, engineers, managers, and administrators, but are over-represented in the human services and in clerical positions. This trend is less pronounced in the overall Canadian population where women, although still under-represented, fare better than their counterparts in the Jewish community.
Women had lower rates of participation in the labour force than men in both the Jewish community and the Canadian population as a whole. Seventy-six per cent of all men age fifteen and over were in the labour force in 1991 compared to 60 per cent for women. The rates of labour force participation are almost identical for Jewish women and Canadian women overall. Jewish women, however, tend to enter the labour force later as they are more likely to remain in school longer. At the same time, Jewish women tend to stay in the labour force longer. Three out of four Jewish women between the ages of forty and sixty-four were in the labour force in 1991, while the corresponding figure for all Canadian women was 63 per cent. Similarly, 12 per cent of all Jewish women age sixty-five and over were still in the labour force as opposed to only 5 per cent of all Canadian women.
Given the lower rates of education for Jewish women compared to Jewish men, and, consequently, their more infrequent representation in professional occupations, it is not surprising to find that women earn substantially less than men. Jewish men were four times more likely to earn $75,000 than Jewish women (17 per cent versus 4 per cent), and seven times more likely to earn over $125,000. This pattern is also evident at lower income levels where almost two out of three Jewish women (63 per cent) earned less than $25,000 in 1991, compared to 42 per cent of Jewish men.
Although the disparity between men and women among Jews and Canadians nationally has been narrowing, the gaps are still wide. Women remain the primary family caretakers and are less likely than men to be considered as part of the paid labour force. Less well educated, they earn less money. Women are thus substantially more likely than men to live below the poverty line.
Poverty among Jews has become indistinguishable from poverty rates among all Canadians. As the Jewish community becomes demographically similar to the Canadian population as a whole, so do the Jewish poor become more similar to the Canadian poor. One in six Jews (15.7 per cent) lived below the Statistics Canada poverty line or were marginal to it in 1991. The corresponding figure for all Canadians was 18.6 per cent. In both communities, a substantially higher percentage of the poor are women, people who live alone, single-parent families, and the elderly. A large percentage of men and women who were poor in both communities were employed.
These poverty rates fluctuated dramatically across the country for both Jews and the Canadian population as a whole. Generally speaking, these fluctuations were in similar directions. That is, in those cities where poverty rates were higher for all residents, they were also higher among Jews. In cities with lower poverty rates, the rates of Jewish poverty were also lower. Thus, Montreal had the highest rates of poverty for all Jews and all Canadians. Vancouver had the third highest rates for both Jews and the entire Canadian population, while rates for Ottawa and Halifax were among the lowest.
Poverty among Jews is particularly prevalent at the higher age levels. (Data on poverty rates by age and gender for Canadian Jews compared to all Canadians in 1991 is available in Table 10.) One in three poor Jewish people in 1991 was over the age of sixty-five, although the elderly made up only 17 per cent of the total Jewish population. Among the youngest age group, 13 per cent of all children under the age of fourteen lived in poverty. They constituted 21 per cent of all Jews, but only 18 per cent of all the Jewish poor, reflecting in part the greater number of Jewish children living in two-parent families, where economic stability was likely to be greater than in single-parent homes.
Rates of poverty among women continue to be higher than poverty rates among men. Fifty-six per cent of all the Jewish poor were women in 1991. This trend becomes particularly noticeable among the elderly. One in three elderly Jewish women lived below the poverty line in 1991, while the corresponding figure for Jewish men was one in five.
Husband-and-wife families are the most economically stable living arrangement among Jews and the Canadian population as a whole. This category accounted for three quarters of all people in each community, but comprised less than half of the poor. Only 10 per cent of all Jews and 12 per cent of all Canadians in husband-and-wife families lived below the poverty line.
Single-parent families and people who live alone are at much greater risk of being poor. Among the Canadian population as a whole, almost half of these populations lived below the poverty line. Among Jews, three in ten people in single-parent families and almost four in ten people who lived alone in 1991 were poor. The plight of women who are both elderly and poor merits specific attention. Fifty-two per cent of all Jewish women aged sixty-five and over, and who lived alone in 1991, lived in poverty. The corresponding figure for Canadians as a whole was 60 per cent.
Twenty-six per cent of all poor Jews between the ages of fifteen and sixty-four worked, as did 30 per cent of all Canadian poor. Divided equally between poor working men and poor working women in both communities, the older they were, the less likely they were to be poor and working. Two thirds of all the working poor were under the age of forty. After age forty, it generally becomes more difficult for poor men and women to find work, no matter how low the actual remuneration.
Poverty affects one in six Jews in Canada, yet it continues to be under-recognized by Canadians generally and by many Jews in particular. Poverty is not just the absence of money. Poverty is also the absence of power, an inability to influence the conditions that affect one’s life. This is particularly true for the elderly, women, immigrants, and single-parent families. It is compounded by frustration, unemployment or underemployment, and social stigma because a disproportionate number of these people lack resources and opportunity and are dependent on others for meagre subsistence.
The demographic characteristics associated with poverty and powerlessness are the same for the Jewish poor and the Canadian poor alike. The Jewish poor, however, have a unique dimension. They are a minority among the Jews because they are poor, and they are a minority among the poor because they are Jews. They thus lack representation in both communities. Assisting poor Jews to gain access to their entitlements, to organize with other groups to change their conditions, to participate in decision-making bodies that affect their lives, and to promote public advocacy with regard to issues of social justice are necessary steps both to counteract dependency and to reduce poverty.
The Canadian Jewish community increased by 14 per cent between 1981 and 1991 and is growing far more rapidly than the Canadian population as a whole. As a result, Canada now has the fifth largest Jewish population in the world. The Canadian Jewish community maintains high levels of Jewish identity, and continuity is less threatened in Canadian Jewish life than it is among American Jews. Increasingly well-educated, professional, and economically successful, Canadian Jewry has undergone a profound transformation that poses challenges and raises policy issues for the Jewish communal agenda. Outlined below are ten major themes that emerge from this demographic analysis.
The growth rate in the Jewish community has not been uniformly distributed throughout Canada. Indeed, in the past two decades, certain communities have grown dramatically while others have lost population. Each community faces unique challenges regarding changes in its population size and characteristics.
Increasingly, national and international Jewish attention and decision-making is focused on Toronto, where almost half of all Canadian Jews reside. Jewish organizations continue to shift or establish their headquarters in this city where the Jewish population has grown by 70 per cent in the last twenty years. In the past, Montreal and Toronto shared comparable influence on Jewish life and were of similar size. As a result of political instability in Quebec, however, Montreal struggles to maintain its numbers while the Toronto Jewish community finds its resources strained as it seeks to absorb the 25 per cent increase in its population in the past decade alone.
This previous regional balance between Toronto and Montreal has been particularly important given both the political relationship between English and French Canada, and the fact that the governance of Canada is much more decentralized than that of the United States. As Toronto becomes more and more central to national Jewish life, the Canadian Jewish community will find considerable difficulty in maintaining equitable representation and relationships with the various Canadian regions.
In the Western provinces, Canada’s “third Jewish city” has traditionally been Winnipeg. Yet, Winnipeg continues to experience serious population losses, while Vancouver has emerged as the most rapidly expanding Jewish community in Canada. The Vancouver Jewish community grew by more than 30 per cent in the past decade to almost 20,000, while the Winnipeg Jewish community saw its numbers reduced from 20,000 in 1971 to 15,000 in 1991.
In spite of this rapid population growth, Vancouver has the highest rates of intermarriage in Canada, as well as the weakest measures of Jewish identity and the highest percentage of unaffiliated Jews. Vancouver attracts many unaffiliated and unmarried younger Jews from other parts of Canada, who opt for the west coast and what has often been described as a “California-style Canadian lifestyle.” Jewish institutions have not been able to develop rapidly enough to respond to the varied needs of this diverse and often unaffiliated constituency.
As Vancouver continues to expand and attract newcomers, the Jewish community will likely also continue to increase its population. It is unclear whether increased numbers will generate an enriched Jewish community with sufficient institutional resources, or if Vancouver will pattern American Jewish cities that have very high rates of intermarriage and weak communal identities. Given the emergence of Vancouver as Canada’s new “third Jewish city,” it is important that the national Canadian Jewish agenda calls for national Jewish attention to these issues.
Winnipeg and Montreal both experienced population losses in the past twenty years. They share the highest percentage of Jewish elderly people because it is mainly younger people who have left these cities. Cities with declining Jewish populations face specific issues such as retaining youth, attracting immigrants, responding to the needs of the elderly and the poor, and maintaining an institutional infrastructure that was built during periods of population growth.
How then do these substantial changes in the size and growth rates of various Jewish communities in Canada influence communal planning? How are rapidly expanding communities to respond to the needs of their new members without sufficient institutional infrastructure? How are communities that have marginally lost populations to cope with the increasing proportion of elderly and poor among Jews who have remained. What are the implications for fundraising and for community representation on national Jewish bodies? How does the demographic centrality of Toronto to Canadian Jewish life affect claims to decision-making?
Much of the growth rate in the Jewish population is attributable to immigration, and almost half of the recent Jewish immigrants were born either in the former Soviet Union or in Israel. The United States and South Africa have also contributed significantly to the Jewish immigration pool, and, in French-speaking Quebec, Morocco was the most frequently cited place of birth for Jewish immigrants.
The fact that Israeli- and Russian-born Jews constitute the majority of contemporary Jewish immigrants to Canada raises questions regarding communal responses to them. On the one hand, international Jewish efforts have encouraged Russian Jews to immigrate to Israel and Israeli-born Jews to make their lives there. Assistance for these groups to emigrate and integrate in other countries has been far more limited. On the other hand, such policies have not deterred substantial immigration to Canada or other countries. And, on a much more positive note, immigrants are central to the continuity of Jewish life in Canada. Immigrants infuse the community with younger people and have substantially lower intermarriage rates.
Both census data and other studies indicate that Canadian Jews have much stronger Jewish identification and lower intermarriage rates than American Jews. This is largely due to the higher percentage of Jews in Canada who are immigrants, the greater density of the total Jewish population in two cities, and the stronger emphasis on ethnicity in Canada generally. Yet, the data reveals that intermarriage rates are increasing, rising by 30 per cent between 1981 and 1991. Intermarriage rates vary substantially across the country, with smaller and rapidly growing communities having both higher rates of intermarriage and weaker forms of communal affiliation. Intermarriage is much higher among the twenty-five to thirty-nine age group, and in smaller or growing population centres.
To what extent, then, is Canada one generation behind the United States? Will intermarriage rates in the early decades of the twenty-first century parallel the American experience? What are the implications of increased intermarriage rates for the long-term continuity of Canadian Jewry? Are these trends irreversible? What programmatic responses might the Canadian Jewish community consider in relation to intermarried families and to their children?
There are two important trends in the age structure of the Canadian Jewish community. First, the Jewish community continues to grow older, with 17.3 per cent over the age of sixty-five in 1991. Women tend to live longer than men, and increasing proportions of elderly Jewish women live alone and are poor.
The age group that is seventy-five and older is the most rapidly growing population among Canadian Jews. At the same time, the size of the fifty-five to sixty-four-year-old age cohort is getting smaller. Thus, two trends are suggested regarding the elderly. The percentage of “new elderly” aged sixty-five and over will level off early in the next century, while the population that is seventy-five and older will grow. This pattern will generate demands for new resources to meet the needs of the frail, and often isolated, elderly.
The second trend concerns increases in the number of children among Canadian Jews in the last decade. Both immigration and increased fertility rates overall account for this important change. It is unclear if this represents a new trend or a temporary phase, but in any event there are important ramifications in terms of the Jewish educational infrastructure and family support services. To what extent can schools and Jewish community centres, for example, plan future trends based on present data?
What are the implications of the aging of Canadian Jewry on communal priorities, on the voluntary capacity of family and relatives to look after their older relatives, and on the capacity of the Jewish community to provide sufficient services to its aging members? Will this aging tendency level off in the next century?
In most families, both adult partners work outside the home. Increasingly, middle-aged and middle-class family members support themselves and two other generations for longer periods of time. As the elderly constitute a larger proportion of the population and live longer once retired, and while children remain in school longer and defer entering the workforce until completing advanced degrees, the burden of their support often falls on middle-aged people who shoulder the economic and social responsibilities for both these generations. What can be done to strengthen husband-and-wife families that continue to be the mainstay, and the most economically viable living unit, among Jews and among all Canadians?
Women in particular will experience the most hardship. Social roles in the Jewish community continue to look to women to provide nurturing and emotional support. The majority of women will carry this responsibility while in the workforce. Families will, therefore, experience increased stress and strain. Faced with both economic and social pressures, Jewish families will likely continue to find care for their children and parents outside the family. The availability of these services and the involvement of Jewish federations in obtaining or supplying them will be of major importance in the years to come.
About one in ten Jewish children lived in single-parent families in 1991 and the percentage continues to increase. Primarily headed by women and often facing economic hardship, single-parent families require a variety of support programs. How can single-parents and their children be helped to feel an integral part of Jewish life, particularly when so many traditions are based on the availability of two parents. How can the Jewish community be helpful to single-parents, who have substantially higher rates of poverty and greater needs for daycare and other community resources?
As noted, Jews have attained astonishingly high levels of education, increasingly work in managerial and professional occupations and have higher incomes than Canadians as a whole. Three in ten Jews held managerial and professional positions in 1991, compared to one in five Canadians. In Toronto, four out of ten doctors and dentists were Jewish in 1991 and, nationally, four times as many Jews completed graduate degrees as Canadians generally.
It is quite likely that this trend will continue as these levels of educational and occupational attainment are even higher in the younger age ranges. It is probable that the nature of Jewish leadership will continue to change and will increasingly reflect a community made up of people with higher levels of education and professional skills. It is unclear at this time, however, the extent to which younger professional Jews value community involvement and will assume leadership roles in it.
What are the implications of an outstandingly educated community, one which is increasingly “professional,” on the structure of the Jewish community? Are these trends evidenced in the kinds of people entering the present generation of Jewish leadership? How do these trends affect communal giving, particularly as it appears that Jews are better off financially than most Canadians? Are professionals more likely to be “community joiners,” or to be less identified with their local Jewish communities?
Despite social and economic changes over the last twenty years that have improved the status of women in the labour force, women in general, and Jewish women in particular, have not achieved equality in education or in the workplace. Clearly the gap between men and women has narrowed over the past twenty years, but it has not done so sufficiently. Compounded with the stress on women of being both caregiver and income earner, this economic and social inequality requires continuing attention. Greater egalitarianism ought to replace cultural stereotypes regarding “proper” occupations, and communal support mechanisms for working women require examination and elaboration.
What programmatic responses can the Jewish community provide to the lack of equality for women in the workplace? How can the Jewish community respond to lower rates of labour force activity and higher rates of poverty among women, Jews and non-Jews alike? What are the implications for programming as well as for policy direction?
One in six Jews in Canada live below the poverty line, and these proportions have remained consistent since Jewish poverty was first measured in the 1971 census. Poverty levels among Jews are comparable to those of the Canadian population as a whole. Elderly people, women, immigrants, single-parent families, the unemployed, and the working poor constitute the majority of people who were poor and Jewish in Canada in 1991.
Poverty among Jews has received scarce attention, in part because of the unparalleled success of most of the Jewish population. Unlike other groups, the Jewish poor lack organizations that represent their needs and, despite their numbers, have virtually no representation in Jewish communal bodies. As noted, the Jewish poor are a minority among Jews because they are poor, and are a minority among the poor because they are Jews. What can be done to enhance their opportunities, to help them get the benefits they need, to organize them to represent themselves, and to advocate for changes in government policy?
For the first time, a construct was derived from the 1991 census in order to identify Jews in Canada who survived the Holocaust. Overall, there are more than 27,000 Holocaust survivors in Canada, representing 7.7 per cent of the total Jewish population. Approximately one in three elderly Jews in Canada in 1991 is a Holocaust survivor.
Holocaust survivors overcame the trauma of Nazi oppression and contributed greatly to Jewish culture and community. There is considerable evidence, however, that the aging process intensifies the suffering caused by losses earlier on in life, which are felt more acutely by this group of people as they recall, yet again, their past, horrific experiences. Appropriate and sensitively delivered services are necessary to assist and comfort survivors in the years ahead. It is important, as well, to document the histories of survivors and promote intergenerational relationships, particularly with school-age children.
This study has identified a number of areas of concern for the Canadian Jewish community at the cusp of the twenty-first century. As a community that has learnt to adapt to the challenges of immigration and integration throughout history, it is well acquainted with the need for flexibility and creativity in responding to ongoing transition and change. With its established place in the fabric of Canada’s multicultural society and its supportive community structure, it must now mobilize its resources and resolve in order to respond to the challenges of the new millennium.