Demographic, social, cultural characteristics of persons of Ukrainian ancestry in Chicago
PART I
Comparisons with other Metropolitan Areas
We start by looking at Chicago within the context of the whole country and the Metropolitan Areas with the largest concentrations of Ukrainians. According to the 1990 census, there were about 738,400 persons of Ukrainian ancestry in the U.S. (Table 1).
Type of Ancestry | ||||||
| Metropolitan Atrea | Total Ukrainians |
Percent U.S.-born |
Percent |
Only |
Ukrainian |
Ukrainian Second |
| United States | 738,400 | 0.863% | 0.132% | 0.473% | 0.212% | 0.302% |
| Philadelphia | 53,000 | 0.857% | 0.178% | 0.494% | 0.214% | 0.292% |
| New York | 40,600 | 0.729% | 0.23% | 0.601% | 0.149% | 0.249% |
| Detroit | 32,300 | 0.843% | 0.147% | 0.472% | 0.205% | 0.324% |
| Chicago | 30,000 | 0.754% | 0.242% | 0.533% | 0.285% | 0.282% |
| Pittsburgh | 25,000 | 0.962% | 0.102% | 0.458% | 0.22% | 0.322% |
| Source: 1990 U.S. Census 5 Percent Public Use Sample Tape. | ||||||
The great majority were U.S. born (86 percent), and only 13 percent spoke Ukrainian in their home. It is not a coincidence that this percentage is very close to the percentage of foreign born (complement of 86 percent).
In order to reflect the reality of American society, the question on ancestry provided the possibility of reporting one or two ancestries, and it is noted which is the first and which is the second ancestry. This allows us to define three groups: a) persons who declared Ukrainian as their only ancestry; b) persons of mixed ancestry who put Ukrainian as their first ancestry; c) persons of mixed ancestry who declared Ukrainian as their second ancestry.
Close to half of all persons declared Ukrainian as their only ancestry. Of the other half, persons of mixed ancestry, about 40 percent stated Ukrainian as their first ancestry, and about 60 percent stated Ukrainian as their second ancestry.
Among the five MAs with the largest number of Ukrainians, Chicago occupied the fourth place with 30,000. Philadelphia had the largest number of Ukrainian (53,000), and Pittsburgh was in fifth place with 25,000. NB: see note at the end of the article about the definitions of these MAs). The percentage of foreign born varied between 73 percent for New York and 96 percent for Pittsburgh, while the percentage of persons speaking Ukrainian at home varied from 10 percent for Pittsburgh to 23 percent for New York. Chicago had 75 percent foreign-born and 24 percent speaking Ukrainian. As can be seen in Table 1, the percentage of foreign born follows closely the percentage of persons speaking Ukrainian; the higher the percentage of foreign-born, the lower the percentage of persons speaking Ukrainian.
New York had the highest percentage of persons of only Ukrainian ancestry (60 percent), followed by Chicago with 53 percent, and Pittsburgh had the lowest percentage with 46 percent. In almost all cases the percentages of persons with Ukrainian as the second ancestry was higher than the percentages of persons with Ukrainian as the first ancestry. Chicago had about 28 percent for each category. One can say that according to these indicators, New York was the least assimilated MA, Chicago the second least assimilated MA, Pittsburgh the most assimilated MA, and that the percentage of foreign-born is a key factor in this process.
Age-sex structure of Ukrainians in Chicago
The rest of the article will deal exclusively with Ukrainians in the Chicago MA. Table 2 presents the age-sex structure of all Ukrainians in Chicago. It also presents the age structure of Ukrainian-speaking persons, and the degree of language retention within each age group. It can be seen that the age structure of Ukrainians is quite uneven. This is better illustrated by Graph 1 (see page 6), which shows the age structure of all Ukrainians in terms of percentages. The structure starts with about 6.7 percent for children age 0-4 years, and declines to a low of 4.3 percent for persons age 15-19. Then it increases to a maximum of 10.4 percent for the 35-39 age group, declines to a minimum of 2.7 percent for the 50-54 group, and then increases again to a high of 7.9 percent for the 65-69 age group. This uneven age structure is the result of two processes: different migration waves and the assimilation process.
Persons of Ukrainian Ancestry |
Persons Speaking Ukrainian | ||||
| Age Group | Male | Female | Total | Number | Percent of Total |
| 0-4 | 1,014 | 1,035 | 2,049 | NA | NA |
| 5-9 | 837 | 861 | 1,698 | 252 | 14.8 |
| 10-14 | 960 | 660 | 1,620 | 192 | 11.9 |
| 15-19 | 624 | 489 | 1,113 | 111 | 10.0 |
| 20-24 | 663 | 993 | 1,656 | 252 | 15.2 |
| 25-29 | 1,296 | 939 | 2,235 | 465 | 20.8 |
| 30-34 | 1,407 | 906 | 2,313 | 558 | 24.1 |
| 35-39 | 1,689 | 1,308 | 2,997 | 975 | 32.5 |
| 40-44 | 1,350 | 1,038 | 2,388 | 570 | 23.9 |
| 45-49 | 702 | 852 | 1,554 | 348 | 22.4 |
| 50-54 | 450 | 375 | 825 | 132 | 16.0 |
| 55-59 | 489 | 660 | 1,149 | 348 | 30.3 |
| 60-64 | 861 | 942 | 1,803 | 609 | 33.8 |
| 65-69 | 1,065 | 1,296 | 2,361 | 1,068 | 45.2 |
| 70-74 | 912 | 945 | 1,857 | 630 | 33.9 |
| 75+ | 696 | 1,086 | 1,782 | 663 | 37.2 |
| Total | 15,015 | 14,385 | 29,400 | 7,173 | 24.4 |
| Median age | 36 | 40 | 38 | 51 | |
| Source: 1990 U.S. Census 5 Percent Public Use Sample Tape. | |||||
The age structure of more "normal" populations has a relatively smooth age structure. Usually the percentages of age groups decrease steadily with age, due to the effects of mortality. In the case of Ukrainians in Chicago, there are two pronounced peaks; one at ages 35-39 and the other at ages 65-69 (by the year 2000 these peaks will be at the age groups 45-49 and 75-79, respectively).
These fluctuations in the age structure have important implications for the community. For example, children age 0-4 in 1990 will be 10-14 in 2000. This means that the number of potential candidates for Sunday schools and youth organizations has been on the increase in the last 10 years. The low percentages for age groups 50-54 and 55-59 in 1990, will result in smaller numbers of senior citizens in the next 20-30 years: they will be 60-69 in the year 2000, 70-79 in 2010 and 80-89 in 2020.
It is interesting to compare the number of males and females by age. An interesting fact is that the total number of males was larger than the total number of females in Chicago, while for all the Ukrainians in the United States we have the opposite relationship, i.e., more females than males. Also due to the higher mortality of males compared to females, in general at higher ages the number of males tends to be increasingly less than the number of females. This is not the case in Chicago. In general the number of males is similar to the number of females for most age groups (with some variations due to sampling error), and only in the age group 75 and up is the number of males significantly lower than the number or females.
The age structure of persons speaking Ukrainian was even more irregular. The percentages were extremely low between the ages of 5 and 19 and the 50-54 age group. We observe a peak of 13.6 percent for the age group 35-39, and a maximum of 14.95 for the age group 65-69. More than 40 percent of Ukrainian speakers were age 60 or older in 1990, and by 2000 they will be 70 or older. This means that a large percentage of Ukrainian speakers will die in the next 10 to 20 years, greatly accelerating the language assimilation process.
In the last column of Table 1 we have the percentages of Ukrainian speakers within each age group. Among persons age 5-24 years, only about 10 to 15 percent spoke Ukrainian in 1990. We observe an increase of Ukrainian speakers in the 25-49 age group, with a maximum of 32.5 for the 35-39 age group. The highest percentages are found among persons age 55 years and up, with between 30 and 45 percent of them speaking Ukrainian.
These irregularities in the age structure of Ukrainian speakers are even more pronounced when we separate males and females. One implication of this is illustrated by the following example. Let us assume that males age 20-24 tend to marry, on the average, females age 17-21, and that the ideal is for Ukrainian speakers to marry among themselves. In 1990 there were about 114 Ukrainian-speaking males age 20-24, while the number of Ukrainian-speaking females age 17-21 was about 84. Thus, in order to find a Ukrainian-speaking wife, many of the males would have to search outside of the Chicago area.
Age structure of the ancestry categories
The concept of ancestry is key to this analysis. The census question - What is your ancestry? - provided the possibility of reporting one or two ancestries. We define as Ukrainians all persons who declared Ukrainian as their ancestry (first, second or only one response). Thus, the definition of Ukrainian used here is that of self-reporting; the respondents had total freedom in their answers.
Table 3 presents the age distribution of the three categories of ancestries: Ukrainian only, Ukrainian first and Ukrainian second. The first group is the oldest one, with a median age of 46 years; that is, half of them were age 46 or older in 1990. There were very few young people in this group, more than half of them were 40 years or older and one-third were 65 years or older.
| Ukrainian Only | Ukrainian First | Ukrainian Second | ||||
| Age Group | Number | Percent | Number | Percent | Number | Percent |
| 0-14 | 1,332 | 8.5 | 1,821 | 34.4 | 2,214 | 27.4 |
| 15-24 | 984 | 6.3 | 522 | 9.9 | 1,263 | 15.7 |
| 25-39 | 3,795 | 24.3 | 1,206 | 22.8 | 2,475 | 30.7 |
| 40-64 | 4,341 | 27.8 | 1,440 | 27.2 | 1,731 | 21.5 |
| 65+ | 5,160 | 33.1 | 306 | 5.8 | 384 | 4.8 |
| Total | 15,612 | 100.0 | 5,295 | 100.0 | 8,067 | 100.0 |
| Median Age | 46.0 | 28.0 | 28.0 | |||
| Source: 1990 U.S. Census 5 Percent Public Use Sample Tape. | ||||||
The other two groups (mixed ancestries) each had a median age of 28 years. Between one-half and one-third of them were in the 0-14 age group, and there were very few in the 65 and up age group. The implication is that, without a significant new immigration, Ukrainians who are not the product of mixed marriages will die out in a relatively short period; by 2000 about half of them will be age 50 or older.
| Ranking | First Ancestry | Second Ancestry |
| 1 | Polish (36.7%) | Polish (20.8%) |
| 2 | German (17.4%) | German (19.7%) |
| 3 | Italian (6.8%) | Irish (10.9%) |
| 4 | Irish (6.4%) | Italian (7.9%) |
| 5 | English (3.7%) | Russian (5.6%) |
| 6 | Slovak (3.4%) | English (5.3%) |
| 7 | Japanese (2.2%) | Lithuanian (4.3%) |
| 8 | Lithuanian (2.2%) | Romanian (2.2%) |
| 9 | Russian (2.0%) | Mexican (2.0%) |
| 10 | Austrian (1.6%) | Austrian (1.8%) |
| Source: 1990 U.S. Census 5 Percent Public Use Sample Tape. | ||
It may be of interest to find out with which ethnic groups Ukrainians in Chicago tend to intermarry. Table 4 presents the 10 most cited ethnic groups listed as first and second ancestry. In both cases Polish and German were in the first and second place, respectively. Between them they accounted for about 57 percent of all first ancestries and 40 percent of all second ancestries. The next two most popular ancestries were Irish and Italian; the percentages of the other ancestries were relatively small.
Immigration waves
The next topic to be examined is the composition of the Chicago community by the four waves of Ukrainian immigration to the United States Table 5 (see page 7) shows that about 75 percent of Ukrainians in Chicago were U.S.-born, and thus only 25 percent were foreign-born. We divide the foreign born into four groups, by period of immigration. The first group is the most recent immigration, between 1987 and 1990. There were about 600 of them reported in the census, and they make about 8 percent of all foreign-born. Their median age was 38, and almost all of them were born in the former USSR; the rest, 4 percent, were born in Canada.
Years of Immigration | ||||||
| Foreign-Born | 1987-1990 | 1960-1986 | 1950-1959 | Before 1950 | Total | |
| Number | 22,401 | 609 | 1,872 | 2,886 | 1,923 | 29,691 |
| Percent | 75.40% | 8.3% | 25.7% | 39.6% | 26.4% | 100.0% |
| Median Age | 32 | 38 | 49 | 63 | 67 | |
| Country of Birth | USSR (95.6%) | USSR (43.3%) | USSR (58.8%) | USSR (54.1%) | ||
| Canada (4.4 %) | Poland (15.5%) | Germany (23.8%) | Canada (14.5%) | |||
| Canada (14.7%) | Poland (8.0%) | Germany (13.1 %) | ||||
| Poland (11.7%) | ||||||
| Source: 1990 U.S. Census 5 Percent Public Use Sample Tape. | ||||||
The second group of immigrants came to the United States between 1960 and 1986. There were about 1,870 of them, according to the census, and they make up about one-fourth of all foreign-born. About half of them were age 49 or older (median age), and close to half of them were born in the former USSR. About 15 percent were born in Poland and another 15 percent were born in Canada.
The third group are the so-called Displaced Persons (DPs), who arrived between 1950 and 1959. This is the largest group with about 2,800 persons, and they make up 40 percent of all the immigrants in Chicago. Most of them were rather old, as the median age of the group was 63. Close to 60 percent of them were born in the former USSR, 24 percent were born in Germany and 8 percent in Poland.
The last group, those who came before the second World War, number almost 2,000 and they comprise a little over one fourth of all the foreign-born. More than half of them were born in the former USSR, and the other major counties of birth were Canada, Germany and Poland. (Probably Germany in this case stands for the Austro-Hungarian Empire).
Of all the U.S.-born, only 12 percent spoke Ukrainian at home; almost all the others spoke English. Among the most recent immigration wave, only 20 percent spoke Ukrainian, while 70 percent spoke Russian at home, and 8 percent spoke Polish. Among the immigrants arriving between 1960 and 1986, close to half spoke Ukrainian at home; about 25 percent spoke Russian and 15 percent spoke English. The DP immigrants were the least linguistically assimilated groups, with 73 percent speaking Ukrainian at home; most of the others spoke English. It is surprising that among the pre-second World War immigrants 70 percent have retained the Ukrainian language; almost 20 percent spoke English and about 6 percent spoke Polish at home.
Occupations and language assimilation
The last topic to be addressed in the first part of this article is the relationship between occupation and language assimilation. We will illustrate the fact that if our community does not provide a meaningful role for Ukrainians who do not speak the language, a tremendous potential in human resources will be lost.
| Occupation | Total | Speak Ukrainian | Do Not Speak Ukrainian | Percent Speak Ukrainian |
| Financial Managers | 378 | 48 | 330 | 12.7 |
| Architects | 15 | 15 | 100.0 | |
| Engineers | 636 | 252 | 384 | 39.6 |
| Physicians | 243 | 68 | 177 | 28.0 |
| Dentists | 90 | 63 | 27 | 70.0 |
| University Professors | 138 | 138 | 0.0 | |
| Librarians | 72 | 72 | 0.0 | |
| Lawyers | 384 | 69 | 315 | 18.0 |
| Editors/Reporters | 42 | 42 | 0.0 | |
| PR Specialists | 69 | 69 | 0.0 | |
| Athletes | 51 | 51 | 0.0 | |
| Source: 1990 U.S. Census 5 Percent Public Use Sample Tape. | ||||
Table 6 presents selected occupations among Ukrainians in Chicago, and distinguishes between those who speak and those who do not speak Ukrainian at home. The 1990 census estimated that there were about 378 Ukrainian financial managers, of which only 48, or 13 percent spoke Ukrainian at home. Of the 15 estimated architects, all of them seemed to speak Ukrainian. Of the more than 600 engineers, about 40 percent spoke Ukrainian, and of the estimated 243 Ukrainian physicians, only about 68 (28 percent) spoke Ukrainian. Rather surprisingly, of the 90 dentists 70 percent spoke Ukrainian. Among lawyers, only 69 out of 384 (or 18 percent) did speak Ukrainian at home.
For all the other professions reported in Table 6 - university professors, librarians, editors/reporters, public relations specialists and athletes - none had Ukrainian speakers, according to the census. It is important to reiterate that these are sample data and that in some cases the actual number of cases is small, which introduces a certain degree of error in the results. It is almost certain that there are in Chicago a few university professors, librarians, or editors/reporters, for example, who do speak Ukrainian at home. But in general census data seems to indicate that the great majority of persons in these occupations did not speak Ukrainian at home.
These results reinforce the obvious fact that by restricting full membership in the organized community to only Ukrainian speakers we run the risk of losing a significant amount of valuable resources. Persons in key professions like university professors or editors and reporters can make significant contributions if allowed to play an active role in the organized community. This is not an easy task, but it is important to recognize this fact and make appropriate changes in the structure of the community, to allow these persons to be able to play a role according to their possibilities and inclinations.
Summary and conclusions
In this section we have looked at some characteristics of Ukrainians in Chicago, according to 1990 census data. We provided an estimate of the number of Ukrainians, by sex and by age. We looked at the effects of both intermarriage and language assimilation processes, and some of their implications. The data allows us to determine which are the most common ancestries among Ukrainians of mixed ancestry, as well as what language is spoken at home, if it is not Ukrainian. We were also able to do a fairly detailed analysis of the different immigration waves, by determining their numbers, age and countries of birth.
This analysis illustrates that census data allow us to obtain a fairly comprehensive picture of Ukrainian communities in large cities. The results presented here represent a small fraction of what can be done. A more detailed analysis of at least the larger communities would be very useful, and could provide a basis of comparison with the 2000 year census data, once they are available. Recent analyses of the problems facing Ukrainian communities in the U.S., both in the press and at numerous conferences, would be greatly strengthened with a systematic statistical analysis of census data.
NOTE: The definitions of the Metropolitan Areas (MAs) used in this paper are the Primary Metropolitan Statistical Areas (PMSA), as defined by the U.S. Bureau of the Census for 1990. These are somewhat smaller areas than the Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) encompassing larger urban areas that often cross state lines. The five MAs discussed here are defined by urban areas in the following counties:
PART I
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, January 9, 2000, No. 2, Vol. LXVIII
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