TABLE 2.-Male breadwinners, classified by nationality and general nativity: Total number, and number and per cent employed as laborers-Continued. • Includes also the few foreign-born white whose parents were natives of the United States. In the first generation of Italians in the United States 33.2 per cent of the male breadwinners are laborers. This is the highest percentage of laborers shown for any class of immigrants that can be distinguished in the census. The Poles rank second, with a percentage of 29.1; then come the Irish and the Hungarians, each with a percentage of 22.3. It is notable that in each of these nationalities the second generation as compared with the first shows a very marked reduction in the percentage of laborers. Thus the percentage of Italians declines from 33.2 in the first generation to 12.4 in the second. Among the Poles the decline is from 29.1 to 15.7; among the Irish from 22.3 to 10.2; and among the Hungarians from 22.3 to 7. In the case of the English Canadian, Danish, English and Welsh, and Scotch the percentage remains about the same, or perhaps shows a slight advance in the second generation. MINERS AND QUARRYMEN. Mining is an occupation which employs a large proportion of foreigners or immigrants. In the census of 1900, 44.3 per cent of the total number of males reported as miners and quarrymen were of foreign birth, or immigrants; and 61.2 per cent were of foreign parentage, being either immigrants or the children of immigrants. TABLE 3.-Male breadwinners, classified by nationality and general nativity: Total number, and number and per cent employed as miners and quarrymen. a Includes also the few foreign-born white whose parents were natives of the United States. 3,880 394 10.2 TABLE 3.-Male breadwinners, classified by nationality and general nativity: Total number, and number and per cent employed as miners and quarrymen—Continued. • Includes also the few foreign-born white whose parents were natives of the United States. Over 5 per cent (5.1) of the white male breadwinners born in foreign countries are employed as miners and quarrymen. For the native white whose parents were born in foreign countries the proportion employed in mining is less than half as large, being 2.3 per cent; for native white whose parents also were natives the corresponding percentage is only 1.5. The nationalities which contribute most largely to this occupation in proportion to their number are the Hungarians, Austrians, English and Welsh, Italians, Poles, and Scotch. For these and for all other foreign nationalities, almost without exception, the percentage of miners is much smaller in the second generation than in the first. IRON AND STEEL WORKERS. In the census classification the iron and steel workers include employees of foundries, furnaces, and rolling mills. The total number employed in this occupation is hardly more than one-half as great as the number employed as miners and quarrymen. Nor is the foreign element quite as prominent as it is in mining, 35.9 per cent of the iron and steel workers being of foreign birth, and 63 per cent being of foreign parentage. TABLE 4.-Male breadwinners, classified by nationality and general nativity: Total number, and number and per cent employed as iron and steel workers. • Includes also the few foreign-born white whose parents were natives of the United States. TABLE 4.-Male breadwinners, classified by nationality and general nativity: Total number, and number and per cent employed as iron and steel workers—Continued. a Includes also the few foreign-born white whose parents were natives of the United States. The 103,214 white male immigrants employed in iron and steel works in 1900 formed 2.1 per cent of the total number of white male immigrants in all occupations. In the second generation of breadwinners represented by the native white of foreign parentage, the percentage of iron and steel workers is almost as large, being 1.9; but of the native white breadwinners of native parentage only 0.8 per cent were reported in this industry. As shown by the percentages in the foregoing table, the Poles and Hungarians, in proportion to their numbers, are employed in iron and steel works to a greater extent than any other nationality distinguished in the census classification, and for each of these nationalities the percentage of iron and steel workers is much smaller in the second generation than in the first. The contrast may be partly due to the youthfulness of the second generation, the occupation here considered being one which affords comparatively few opportunities for the employment of children." Those nationalities, such as the German and Irish, which are represented by an older second generation, include almost or quite as large a percentage of iron and steel workers in the second generation as in the first. On the whole the movement away from this occupation on the part of the second generation is not so marked as it is in the case of the two occupations previously considered, namely, that of general laborers and that of miners and quarrymen. It will be found, in fact, a The census of 1900 reported as iron and steel workers only 112 children under 14 years of age; 299 were reported as 14 years, and 744 as 15. |