IMMIGRATION AND FAMILY SEPARATION IN THE UNITED-STATES AT THE TURN OFTHE 20TH-CENTURY

This essay provides the first quantitative and comparative estimates b ased on a nationally representative sample of the extent and duration of family separation associated with immigration to the U.S. at the tu rn of the century. It uses information from the Public Use Sample of t he 1910 U.S. Census to examine the separation of husbands and wives, a nd parents and children, and compares the largest ethnic groups (Briti sh, Irish, Scandinavians, Germans, Poles, Italians, and Jews). Of thos e couples who were living together at the time of the 1910 census and who had married before immigration, more than half immigrated in the s ame year. Children were often separated from their fathers but rather rarely from their mothers. Most separations of any kind were brief usu ally lasting less than two years. Some of our estimates are in line wi th the findings of others, while in other cases they raise questions a bout ethnic myths and ethnic stereotypes.