SAJAforum

SURVEY: Hindus in the US the best educated, wealthiest, most into marriage

Hindus in America are more likely than members of other religions to have advanced degrees, according to a new survey from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (via the SAJA Discussion list).

Nearly half of Hindus in the U.S., one-third of Jews and a quarter of Buddhists have obtained post-graduate education, compared with only about one-in-ten of the adult population overall. Hindus and Jews are also much more likely than other groups to report high income levels.

The Times of India has a little more on the income issue, noting that Jews have a slightly higher percentage of high earners.

The survey based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans, aged 18 and more, also shows that Hindus and Jews are also much more likely than other groups to report high income levels, with 46 per cent of Jews earning more than USD100,000 a year and 43 per cent of Hindus earning above USD100,000. In the overall US population, only 18 per cent of the adult population earns USD100,000-plus a year.

Hindus also clean up the competition when it comes to getting married, and only stray from the tribe in emergencies.

Hindus and Mormons are the most likely to be married (78% and 71%, respectively) and to be married to someone of the same religion (90% and 83%, respectively).

Let's see, what else: According to this table, a whopping 61% of Hindus are male. More than 8 in 10 Hindus are foreign born. They make up just 0.4% of all American adults.

LOVE/MARRIAGE: Divorces on the rise in India, and re-marriage

Two recent articles address divorce in India: how its a growing phenomenon, and how it's becoming, in certain respects, more acceptable.

According to India's Times News Network, for every 5 weddings registered in Mumbai and Thane since 2002, family courts have received 2 applications for divorce. Read excerpts from the article below.

Exactly 104,287 marriages were registered in Mumbai and Thane between January 2002 and October 2007. During the same period, the family courts in the two districts received 44,922 applications for divorce. Figures for 2007 bear out the trend. Mumbai and Thane registered 17,221 marriages between January and October last year. There were 7,813 applications for divorce within the same time span.

The statistics have alarmed psychiatrists and sociologists. Mumbai, say sociologists, is increasingly time-stressed with many couples doing about 80 km of commuting every day in addition to eight- to ten-hour jobs. “Even longstanding, stable matrimonial relationships may eventually crack under severe pressure,” a Tata Institute of Social Sciences sociologist said.

“There is no shame or stigma attached to a divorce now and even parents often back their daughters who want to separate if things do not fall in place,” psychiatrist Harish Shetty added. The increasing numbers corroborate what they say. Last year (until October) saw 4,138 divorce applications in Mumbai. This is an increase of 47.5% over the 2002 figure of 2,805.

Somini Sengupta of The New York Times looks at how there are far more listings for divorced people in the matrimonials these days. From "As Mores Evolve, India's Divorced Seek Second Chance":

Marriage is still, by and large, socially compulsory. But in a measure of the slow churning of Indian social mores, divorce and remarriage are slowly gaining acceptability. “In general, it’s no taboo these days,” Mr. Raina said gamely, and went on to praise the anonymity that big cities in particular offered to those who wanted a fresh start. To get away from clucking tongues and wagging fingers, a divorced man, as Mr. Raina put it, “just has to change his house. From East Delhi to South Delhi, he is a new person.”

SURVEY: CNN-IBN study on the dangers of being a woman in India

So here’s a study by CNN-IBN that confirms my worst fears about the lives of women across India. I grew up in a big city like Delhi in the early 90s and sometimes, it wasn't easy. Most public transport spaces were male domains that made sexual remarks and outright groping very viable. Offices had their share of seemingly polite perverts and men who thought women dressed well with the hope of attracting their male colleagues. And then there were the women who experienced violence at home and probably felt safe nowhere. I had held the belief that Delhi was the hub of such activity and not representative of the entire nation, at least not anymore. Apparently I was wrong.

The CNN-IBN-Indian Express-CSDS study which was conducted with 4000 women in 160 locations across 20 states including metros, big cities, towns and villages has some disturbing findings:

• Nearly half the women interviewed, 44 per cent to be precise, said that they felt ‘mostly’ (17 per cent) or ‘sometimes’ (27 per cent) unsafe outside their home. The survey findings also confirm that the metropolitan areas (million plus cities) are most insecure places for the women.
• Women in small towns feel much less insecure than big cities or villages. Young women below 25 years, especially in villages, poor women in big cities, single working women and young Muslim women are among the most vulnerable group.
• A majority of young women living in the metros said they had experienced teasing and one-third of them had experienced molestation in the last one year in public transport.
• Harassment at the work place is not confined to daily-wage workers or those who work in the unorganized sector. Organized sector professionals who work in offices report a higher than average experience of harassment at the work place.
• Nearly one-fifth of our married respondents said they were beaten by their husband or in-laws in the last one year; the figure for husband alone was 17 percent.

Click here to read the full study.

However, the study/media story (written by two men, Yogendra Yadav and Sanjay Kumar) depicts women as passive beings (victims) and certainly does not provide an opportunity for women to talk about how they dealt with their situation. As for taking the matter to the authorities, about half of all women - across caste and class - said they're not comfortable turning to the police.

STATISTICS: Nearly 2.3 million Hindus estimated in America

Hinduism Today estimates that there are more than 2,290,000 Hindus in the United States. The editors decided to use the percentage of Hindus in India - 81% of the population - and apply that against the total number of Asian Indians in America. Here's an excerpt from the Jan/Feb/March issue of the magazine:

"The 2006 [American Community] Survey, which was released in October, 2007, counted 2,482,141 Asian Indians. This includes those of Indian origin coming from countries such as Trinidad, Kenya, Surinam and Fiji. To update this figure for 2008, we must consider the average annual growth rate for Asian Indians. In the year 2000, the decennial census counted 1,678,765 Asian Indians; the Survey estimated 2,482,141 in 2006, which works out to an annual growth rate of about 6.8 percent. Using that growth rate to extrapolate the 2006 Survey result two years, we calculate 2,831,190 Asian Indians in 2008. Assuming 81% of these Asian Indians are Hindus, just as in India, we conclude that of the 2,831,190 Asian Indians, 2,290,000 are Hindus--qed! But despite the compelling logic of this analysis, Hinduism Today has never seen it published elsewhere. What about the other estimates?"

The article then addresses the problem with the definitive figure, cited by the American Religious Identification Survey, or ARIS:

"This was a telephone survey involving 50,281 households. ARIS concluded that 0.4% of America's population, or about 1.2 million people in 2008, are Hindus. In the absence of a more extensive study, this has become a semi-official number, sustained by the ARIS report's easy availability at the main US Census Bureau website. Before the advent of the American Community Survey, there was no way of challenging ARIS' conclusions. The ARIS report forthrightly acknowledges its limits. It admits, "because the survey depends on telephone interviews, overcoming language barriers has proven prohibitively costly. In effect, this survey has interviewed only the English-speaking population of the US. In addition, many new immigrants originate in societies and states where responding to personal questions over the telephone is an alien experience, and discussions of one's religious beliefs and identification are deemed to be risky."

"The report's conclusion mentions the impressive growth of Hinduism in America, observing, "there are more than three times as many Hindus in the US today as there were in 1990. Undoubtedly, due to the limitations of this study, we have not picked up the full impact of those changes yet." Unfortunately, the ARIS estimate is typically quoted as fact, with no mention of these caveats."

Earlier on SAJAforum:

• CENSUS: The top desi surnames in America
• STATS: Numbers for various South Asians in America
• RELIGION: The numbers on all the faithful, and the faithless

ECONOMICS: How much Indian consumers spend, vs. Americans and Chinese

The New York Times has an op-ed by several economics experts, trying to figure out whether the U.S. is in a recession. One piece is by Stephen Roach, chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, who made this point:

There is hope that young consumers from rapidly growing developing economies can fill the void left by weakness in American consumers. Don’t count on it. American consumers spent close to $9.5 trillion over the last year. Chinese consumers spent around $1 trillion and Indians spent $650 billion. It is almost mathematically impossible for China and India to offset a pullback in American consumption.

Read the rest of Roach's piece here: "You Can Almost Hear it Pop"

CENSUS: The top South Asian surnames in America (Patel et al)

According to a new Census study, based on returns from the year 2000 (Excel spreadsheet via the NY Times) the most common surname in America is... Smith. No surprise there. So, what's the most common desi surname?

That would be... Patel. It's the 172nd most common surname in America (way up from its standing in 1990, when it was a mere #591). By these Census figures, there were 145,066 Patels in the country, resulting in 54 occurrences per 100,000 people. Just over 91% of all Patels are classified as Asians.

Between scrolling down the Excel spreadsheet and randomly plugging in other names into the Times page, here are a few other desi names I found in the Top 5000.

• Singh - #396 (#1306 in 1990) - there were 72,642 Singhs in all
• Khan - #665 (#1728)
• Shah - #831 (#2194)
• Kumar - #2293 (#5154)
• Desai - #2540 (#5068)
• Gupta - #3173 (#6863)
• Reddy - #3313 (#3776)
• Mehta - #3377 (#7589)
• Rao - #3872 (#7375)

How's that for nominal (get it?) progress? I realize a couple of these names, like Khan or Rao, may also be found outside of South Asia but thought it better to err on the side of inclusion (although, controversially, I didn't accept Gay, #974, as a cognate of Ghai). I also figure some names, like Chowdhury/Choudhry and other variations, might've been serious contenders if not for all the different spellings. Sorry, Bangla-philes. Sadly, Venugopal didn't even receive an honorable mention; nor did Screwvalla or Palaniappan.

Update: Thanks to Mitra Kalita for pointing out a name I'd missed - Sharma - #2247

Any other suggestions? Plug in any other South Asian names here - if they make the Top 5,000 let us know below.

STATISTICS: India's poor and the numbers game

Churumuri has an amusing little roundup of all the different and often-contradictory ways that people gauge the level of poverty in India (via IndiaUncut). Depending on the metric, it's anywhere from 20-something percent to 90 percent of the population. I quote liberally and without shame:

• 90 per cent: The Asian Development Bank said two years ago that “at least 90 percent of people” live on less than $1 a day in India, China and some Southeast Asian countries.
• 77 per cent: The columnist Praful Bidwai said in Bangalore this week that 77 per cent of the population lives on less than Rs. 20 a day, or half a dollar.
• 54 per cent: In May this year, Newsweek reported that in 1985, 93 per cent of India’s population lived on less than $1 per day; by 2005, it was 54 per cent.
• 52.5 per cent: The Washington Post, quoting the same World Bank, said in August 1997 that 52.5 per cent of Indians earned less than $1 a day.
• 50 per cent: Ramtanu Maitra wrote in Executive Intelligence Review in December 2006 that 450 million Indians (or a little less than 50 per cent) lived below the World Bank’s old definition of $1 per day per persion, and that 700 million Indians (or almost 70 per cnet) lived below the poverty line based on the World bank’s new definition of a minimum earning of $2 per day per person.

IMMIGRATION: Skilled workers, out in the cold

Immigration reform looks rather dead at the moment but the quandary of hundreds of thousands of skilled workers remains. So does the issue of what this country plans to do if it wants to retain its competitive edge in the decades to come. Following is a guest post by Vikas Chowdhry, a techie and blogger at Arthshastra.

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Last week, the immigration reform bill, grandiosely termed the "Grand Bargain," failed to gather enough votes and was put on the back burner. This bill had always been more of a Faustian bargain in the eyes of skilled legal non-immigrants because everyone involved in the debate knows that the problems and solutions for the skilled immigrants are vastly different from those of illegal immigrants and yet, the lawmakers insisted on having a single bill to solve all the immigration related problems.

There are all sorts of issues facing skilled legal non-immigrants (A legal non-immigrant is someone legally in the U.S. on a non-immigrant visa - more here), but here's the short version of how it works:

Skilled non-immigrants (Software Developers, Engineers, Doctors, MBAs, etc.) can apply for immigrant visas or green cards under the category called Employment Based (EB) immigration. There are multiple sub-categories within that called EB1, EB2, EB3 based on the skills and education of the potential immigrant. There is an upper limit of 140,000 visas for all EB categories combined, which is further subject to a per-country limit of 7%. So the citizens of the island of Mauritius, India and China each have 9800 visas available to them per year. When you consider the fact that all employment-based visa seekers, like Doctors, Programmers, Scientists and MBAs from a country like India or China have a total of 9800 visas available to them per year, the gravity of the situation and the seriousness of the backlogs becomes readily apparent. Every year, far more people apply for immigrant visas than the numbers available and the resultant bottleneck forces skilled, legal non-immigrants to wait for years in the queue.

In 2006, the U.S. government issued 1,266,264 immigrant visas, of which only 159,081 (12%) were issued to EB categories while 803,335 (63.4%) were issued for Family based categories. Just how many legal, skilled non-immigrants are stuck in the backlog? Conservative numbers put us at 300,000 - 500,000 while some estimates are as many as a million people. When you account for dependents on the primary applicants, you are looking at at least a million affected people, most of them from India and China.

STATS: Spending by South Asian Americans on Entertainment

From a request this morning:

I'm putting together a report on the South Asian demographic in the US, UK, and India. I'm looking for the $, £, and Rupee amount of how much South Asians/Indians spend or have spent on entertainment (movies) on average in 2006 or recent years. Do you think that you may be able to help me out? Please let me know what your thoughts are on this matter. Thanks in advance for all your help.

Let's help him out, folks. Post your answers in the comments section below and check back later for updates.

EARLIER ON SAJAFORUM:

• STATS: Numbers for various South Asians in the U.S.
• STATS: Figures about India
• All postings in the STATISTICS category

POLITICS: Exit poll of South Asian voters

[UPDATE: UberDesi points out that in this AALDEF poll, there were 10 South Asian Democrats for every South Asian Republican.]

South Asians vote for Democrats, no surprise there. But according to an exit poll from AALDEF, they're more overwhelmingly Democratic than you might've guessed. Below are the numbers for four Senate races that took place in November (the grey represents how much the Democrat received, and the red, the Republican), including James Webb's defeat of George Allen in Virginia (no South Asian surprises there). Over 1200 South Asian voters were polled; AALDEF was assisted by SAALT, SAYA, Sikh Coalition and Legal Access Network for South Asians