The "melting pot": A success story?

The "melting pot" policy intends to create a new generation of migrants that will assimilate with the native population. The instruments used by the policy makers are fiscal and educational policies, which are intended to eliminate disparities between the migrants and the native population. The aim of this paper is to examine the success of this policy among second generation Israelis. In other words, the question of interest is whether the second generation is more similar to the natives, or to their own parents. The methodology used is ANOGI - ANalysis Of GIni - which is similar to ANOVA except that it offers an additional parameter - stratification between groups. We compare two classifications: in the first, the second-generation Israelis were classified as Israelis, while in the second they were classified as belonging to the country of origin (of their parents). We find that the latter classification is more stratified than the former. This suggests that the melting pot policy did not achieve its declared targets.