Psychological and acculturation correlates of work status among Soviet Jewish refugees in the United States

The present study assesses the relationship of work status to acculturation and psychological adaptation among 206 refugees from the former Soviet Uni on who have resettled in the United States. These refugees lived in two dif ferent urban areas: the Washington, DC area and the Brighten Beach communit y in New York. Psychological adaptation was measured in terms of life satis faction and alienation. Three categories of work status were used: unemploy ed, underemployed and employed in one's own field of professional expertise . In general, a linear trend was found among the three groups. Thus, refuge es employed in the same field as in the former Soviet Union had been in the United States the longest and reported the highest levels of income, level of American acculturation, comfort speaking English, and life satisfaction . Those unemployed were lowest on each of these variables. Alienation was s ignificantly lower only among those employed in the same professional field and was equally high for both the unemployed and the underemployed. City d ifferences revealed that residents of the Washington, DC area were more lik ely to be working and had higher levels of education, income, life satisfac tion, comfort speaking English, and behavioral acculturation to the America n culture. Implications are offered for the role of work in immigrant adapt ation and the importance of attending to community differences.