Religion and social status in pre-war Poland

In pre-war Poland Jews were - in general - the most prosperous religious group / ethnic group.

The least prosperous groups were Orthodox Christians and Greek Catholics (Ukrainians-Belarusians).

Roman Catholics and Protestants were roughly on par with each other, and in the middle between Jews and Ukrainians-Belarusians.

But wealth within Jews was - perhaps - distributed more inequally than within most of other groups.

There was a large Jewish elite and middle class, but also a large number of relatively poor Jews. Members of Jewish elite were not very religious (there were few Orthodox Jews among them), some of them were even Atheists, and large part of them spoke Polish as their mother tongue.

Jewish masses spoke mostly Yiddish or (sometimes) Hebrew as their mother tongue, and were Orthodox in their religion.

Believers of Judaism who declared Polish as their mother tongue in 1931 census were 372 thousand (less than 12% of all Jews in Poland).

Majority of Jews lived in cities and towns, minority in villages (unlike in case of Non-Jews).

Rural Jews were - on average - more educated than rural Non-Jews.

Urban Jews were - on average - less educated than urban Non-Jews.

But since urban people were usually more educated than non-urban people, and among Jews urbanization was much higher than among Non-Jews, then Jews were the most educated group, even though urban Jews were on average less educated than urban Non-Jews:

Abramitzky-Halaburda said:

(...) Since during both censuses about 3/4 of Jews resided in urban areas and 3/4 of the total population lived in rural areas, a general comparison without distinction into urban and rural areas compares mostly urban Jews to mostly rural non-Jews. Population in urban areas was signicantly more literate than that in rural areas, for both the Jewish minority and the non-Jewish population. Urban Jews - even though less literate than urban non-Jews - are still more literate than rural non-Jews. Thus, in the aggregate statistics, Jews are more literate than non-Jews. (...)

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(...) Jews attained higher levels of education than non-Jews, but lower levels in urban areas (...)

Click to expand...

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Here some data:

Figures for total population and academic students rounded to tenths of percents.

Other figures (on main sources of upkeep / professions) rounded to full percents.

Jews:

% of total population (1931) ----------------------------------------- 9.8
% of all academic students (1928/1929) ---------------------------- 20.4
% of all people living from agriculture (1931) ---------------------- 1
% of all people living from industry (1931) -------------------------- 21
% of all people living from trade (1931) ------------------------------ 59
% of all people living from communication (1931) --------------- 12
% of all people living from other professions (1931) ------------ 12

Roman Catholics (essentially Poles):

% of total population (1931) ----------------------------------------- 64.8
% of all academic students (1928/1929) ---------------------------- 70.1
% of all people living from agriculture (1931) ---------------------- 63
% of all people living from industry (1931) -------------------------- 71
% of all people living from trade (1931) ------------------------------ 37
% of all people living from communication (1931) --------------- 82
% of all people living from other professions (1931) ------------ 77

Protestants (essentially Germans):

% of total population (1931) ----------------------------------------- 2.6
% of all academic students (1928/1929) ---------------------------- 2.5
% of all people living from agriculture (1931) ---------------------- 3
% of all people living from industry (1931) -------------------------- 3
% of all people living from trade (1931) ------------------------------ 2
% of all people living from communication (1931) --------------- 1
% of all people living from other professions (1931) ------------ 3

Greek Catholics (essentially Ukrainians & Belarusians):

% of total population (1931) ----------------------------------------- 10.5
% of all academic students (1928/1929) ---------------------------- 4.6
% of all people living from agriculture (1931) ---------------------- 15
% of all people living from industry (1931) -------------------------- 3
% of all people living from trade (1931) ------------------------------ 1
% of all people living from communication (1931) --------------- 3
% of all people living from other professions (1931) ------------ 5

Orthodox Christians (essentially Belarusians & Ukrainians):

% of total population (1931) ----------------------------------------- 11.8
% of all academic students (1928/1929) ---------------------------- 1.9
% of all people living from agriculture (1931) ---------------------- 18
% of all people living from industry (1931) -------------------------- 2
% of all people living from trade (1931) ------------------------------ 1
% of all people living from communication (1931) --------------- 2
% of all people living from other professions (1931) ------------ 3

Other religions (for example Muslims - Lipka Tatars) or irreligious / Atheists (including irreligious Poles, Jews, etc.):

% of total population (1931) ----------------------------------------- 0.5
% of all academic students (1928/1929) ---------------------------- 0.5

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When it comes to academic students:

Jewish overrepresentation among law & political sciences students in 1928/1929 was higher than among students in general.

But their overrepresentation among medicine students in 1928/1929 was lower than among students in general.

And in case of for example technical students, Roman Catholics were more overrepresented than Jews.

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Data comes from:

http://bc.mbpradom.pl/dlibra/docmetadata?id=9097&from=publication

http://postimg.org/image/46ndk4pf1/full/

And:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...df+&cd=5&hl=pl&ct=clnk&gl=pl&client=firefox-a

And here a comparison of Jews to non-Jews in pre-war Poland. But "non-Jews" here include not only Poles (even though this article notoriously refers to them as "Poles"), but also Ukrainians, Belarusians, Germans and other non-Jewish ethnic & religious minorities in Poland:

"Where Jews in Interwar Poland More Educated?", by R. Abramitzky and H. Halaburda:

http://www.stanford.edu/~ranabr/Abramitzky-Halaburda.pdf