26. OCCUPATIONS OF THE FIRST AND SECOND GENERATIONS OF IMMIGRANTS

The differences between the occupations of the immigrants and those of their children born in this country are of great interest because they throw light both upon the tendency of the immigrant stock to rise from relatively unskilled and poorly paid occupations to higher callings and upon the trend of the competition which the immigrant stock is exerting upon the native-born Americans of native parentage. Some of the nationalities are represented by very small numbers of the second generation born in this country. This is especially the case with some of the races in the newer immigration - Austrians, Hungarians, Italians, Poles, and Russians. In some of the older immigrant stocks, like the Irish and Germans, on the contrary, the numbers in the second generation are very large.

"As a result of these variations in the relative size of the two generations the racial composition of the first generation of foreign breadwinners differs in a marked degree from that of the second. Thus of the first generation of male breadwinners of foreign origin, 26.1 per cent are Germans and 14.6 per cent are Irish; while in the second generation these percentages are much larger, the percentage of Germans being 36 and that of Irish, 26.3. The first generation, therefore, is 40.7 per cent Irish and German, the second 62.3 per cent. Accordingly the characteristics of the Irish and Germans have more influence upon the second generation, taken as a whole, than upon the first.

"On the other hand, the Italians, Poles, and Russians constitute, respectively, 5.7, 3.7, and 3.9 per cent of the first generation, as compared with 0.4, 0.6, and 0.4 per cent of the second generation. In the aggregate these three nationalities represent 13.3 per cent of the first generation and only 1.4 per cent of the second.

Because of this difference in the racial composition of the two generations it becomes difficult to determine the significance of the difference between the two generations as regards the

occupations which they follow unless the comparison is made for each nationality separately."1

The Immigration Commission made the comparison by races, but as such a detailed comparison involves separate tables for

1 Abstract of the Report of the Immigration Commission on Occupations of the First and Second Generations of Immigrants, pp. 8, 9.

2 Breadwinners, ten years of age and over. The figures are percentages of the total number of individuals in each class. Compiled from Abstract of Report on Occupations of the First and Second Generations of Immigrants in the United States, 1911.

CLERICAL PURSUITS

SALESWOMEN

TEACHERS

each race, all that it is possible to give here is a summary for the different nativity groups and for the more important occupation groups. While the figures here given are of no value in tracing the tendencies in any given race, a comparison of the percentages in each occupation in the "foreign-born" and "native born of foreign parentage" groups is of considerable significance.

27. PROPOSITIONS CONCERNING THE OCCUPATIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE LABÓR SUPPLY1

I

A. One large factor in the bad distribution of wealth is the bad distribution of men among the different occupations, too many crowding into the unskilled and too few going into the skilled and the learned occupations.

B. Children born of parents who have not been able to rise out of the poorly paid occupations are themselves less likely, on the average, to rise out of these occupations than are the children of parents who have risen into the more highly skilled and better paid occupations.

C. Therefore it would help matters if the birth rate could be reduced among those who remain in the overcrowded, underpaid, and unskilled occupations.

II

So long as immigrants enter the ranks, particularly the lower ranks, of labor 2 in larger proportions, and the ranks of the business and professional classes in smaller proportions than the nativeborn, continuous immigration will produce the following results:

A. As to Distribution. It will keep competition more intense among laborers, particularly in the lower ranks, and less intense among business and professional men, than it otherwise would be. This will tend to increase the incomes of the employing classes, and to depress wages, particularly the wages of the lower grades of labor. 1 By T. N. Carver. From Bulletin of the American Economic Association, April, 1911, pp. 204-206.

2 Cf. Commons, Races and Immigrants in America. Table between pages 108 and 109.

B. As to Production. It will give a relatively low marginal productivity to a typical immigrant, particularly in the lower grades of labor, and make him a relatively unimportant factor in the production of wealth - a few more or a few less will make relatively little difference in the total production of national wealth.1

C. As to Organization of Industry. Because of their low individual productivity, they can only be economically employed at low wages and in large gangs.2.

D. As to Agriculture. If immigrants go in large numbers into agriculture, it will lead to one or the other of the following results, in all probability the latter:

1. The continuous morcellement or subdivision of farms, resulting in an inefficient and wasteful application of labor, and smaller crops per man, though probably larger crops per acre; or

2. The development of a class of landed proprietors on the one hand, and a landless agricultural proletariat on the other.3

1 A disproportionately large supply of one grade of labor as compared with the supply of other grades of labor with which it has to be combined in production, tends to make each laborer in that grade an unimportant factor in production, so that one laborer more in that grade adds very little to, and one laborer less subtracts very little from, the total quantity which can be produced. By way of illustration, charcoal, sulphur, and saltpeter have to be mixed in the production of gunpowder. The proportions may vary within rather narrow limits. Suppose that there is more charcoal than can be satisfactorily combined with the existing supply of sulphur and saltpeter. No matter how much demand for gunpowder there may be, no more can be made than the scarcer factors will permit. However excellent the charcoal may be, it cannot all be used advantageously. Under such conditions, one pound of charcoal more or less will have very little influence on the total production of gunpowder.

The different factors of production, including the various kinds of human ability, have to be combined in production. The proportions may vary within somewhat wider limits than can the ingredients in the manufacture of gunpowder, but the principle is the same.

2 Just as scarce labor and abundant land lead inevitably to extensive farming where a small quantity of the scarce factor, labor, is combined with a large quantity of the abundant factor, land, so a relatively small supply of managing ability and a relatively large supply of the kind of labor which must be superintended leads inevitably to a combination of a small quantity of the scarce form with a large quantity of the abundant form, i.e., one superintendent, foreman, or boss, over a large gang. Again, just as in the former case there will be high wages and low rent, so in the latter case there will be high salaries and low wages.

3 So long as labor is scarce and dear, and land abundant and cheap, the way is easy from the position of farm laborer to that of farm owner, and many there

III

If there are large numbers of immigrants belonging to races or nationalities which do not fuse with the rest of the population by free intermarriage, or with which the rest of the population will not intermarry freely, there will result one of the three following conditions:

1. Geographical separation of races; or

2. Social separation of races, i.e., in the formation of classes or castes; one race or the other becoming subordinate; or

3. Continual race antagonism, frequently breaking out into

race war.

28. THE INFLUENCE OF IMMIGRATION UPON THE

NATIVE BIRTH RATE1

Between 1850 and 1870 the rate of increase in the preëxisting population of this country fell sharply off; and between 1870 and 1890 that decline has gone on at an accelerated ratio. From the first appearance of foreigners in large numbers in the United States the rate of increase among them has been greater than among those whom they found here; and this disproportion has tended continually, ever since, to increase. But has this result been due to a decline in physical vitality and reproductive vigor in that part of the population which we call, by comparison, American, or has it been due to other causes, perhaps to the appearance of the foreigners themselves? This is a question which requires us to go back to the beginning of the nation. The population of 1790 may be considered to have been, in a high sense, American. It is true that (leaving the Africans out of account) it was all of European stock; but immigration had practically ceased on the outbreak of the Revolution, in 1775, and had not been renewed, to any important extent, at the occurrence be that find it; but when labor becomes abundant and cheap, and land scarce and dear, the way becomes hard, and few there will be who will find it.

1 By Francis A. Walker. From Discussions in Economics and Statistics, Vol. II, pp. 120-122, 420-426. Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1899. This paper was originally published in the Forum, Vol. II (1891), pp. 634-643.