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Economic data, such as employment and income, are central, yet poorly studied aspects of life for Muslims in Western countries. With no official government statistics on religious affiliation, the United States and France rely on other sources for information about the welfare of Muslim populations. In America, these sources include limited or non-scientific polls and private commercial surveys; in France, recent studies have focused on communities of immigrants from Muslim countries. The few studies available emphasize that history, and national and ethnic identity, have left their mark on the welfare of Muslims in each country.
In America, Muslims -- or at least some Muslims -- fare quite well compared to the average American. They tend to be highly educated, with above-average incomes and high levels of participation in professional careers. However, divisions of wealth and status, and a lack of social mixing prevail among different Muslim ethnicities in America. This is particularly pronounced between high-income, Arab-American Muslim populations, and the lower-income "indigenous" Muslim populations, composed primarily of African-Americans.
In contrast, French Muslims tend to be poorer, on average, than the nation as a whole. As in much of Europe, the French Muslim community was established largely by waves of immigrant laborers in the 1960s through the mid-1970s, and has continued under family reunification provisions since. These populations have grown, but remained, by and large, below average in income and social status. Recent studies -- which focus on "immigrants" but refer to Muslim-related issues -- describe the nearly two million residents of increasingly "ghettoized" suburbs, forming a culturally distinct, socially and economically "excluded" population. Meanwhile, Muslims make up a disproportionate fraction of the prison population, and have virtually no political representation. It is becoming apparent that, despite France’s commitment to view all French as equal, the nation must make a special effort to reckon with this generally poor, voiceless, frustrated, and, some believe, increasingly radical and criminal group. The data above, taken from news reports of a leaked national intelligence service study and other sources, are an incomplete but telling sample of the challenge that France and its Muslim population face.
Sources:
1. One survey of Muslims in Illinois: Muslims in America: Profile, Abdul Malik Mujahid: http://www.allied-media.com/AM/AM-profile.htm, which takes its data from Muslim of Illinois, A Demographic Report, Ilyas Ba-Yunus, East-West University, Chicago, 1997, p. 26
2. A commissioned national marketing survey, conducted by Cornell University, 2002: http://www.aljazeerah.info
Snapshot of Muslims in America.htm which refers to and compares data from:
a 2002 Cornell University Survey; a poll by Zogby International, August 2000
3. U.S. Census Data 2000
Other sources: BBC News Online, Brookings Institution, San Francisco Chronicle, TIME Europe, Aljazeera.net
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