The Jewish and secular consequences of economic vulnerability among U.S. Jews

• In Event: Addressing Lacunae in the Literature: Research on Understudied Jewish Populations

Abstract

In a study commissioned by the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, researchers at Rosov Consulting and Tulane University are conducting what to the best of our knowledge is the first mixed-methods investigation focusing specifically on economic vulnerability among US Jews. This paper will utilize the study’s nonprobability survey to examine Jewish and secular consequences of economic vulnerability. It will start with a brief introduction to the survey’s design and methodology, making clear both its innovations and its limitations. It will then transition to a comparison of three groups of respondents: those who are facing economic vulnerability now or have faced it in the past five years; those who faced economic vulnerability at some point in their lives but not within the past five years; and those who have never faced economic vulnerability. Bivariate comparisons will include (i) financial constraints on participation in multiple aspects of Jewish life; (ii) human service needs (iii) food, housing, and health care insecurity; (iv) assessments of social and family life, and physical and mental health; (v) trust in institutions; and (vi) social networks. Multivariate analysis will control for a range of proximate demographic and identity-based factors that may contribute to differences between the three groups, including age, race/ethnicity, gender, disability status, marital/relationship status, urbanicity/rurality, immigrant status, education and Jewish denominational identity, as well as two distal/structural factors, parents’ education and Jewish upbringing. Because the survey design is nonprobability, differences between groups will not be determined by tests of statistical significance, but rather assessed by sample-specific effect size measures.

Author

• Laurence Kotler-Berkowitz, Rosov Consulting