Population Group Differences in Cognitive Functioning in a National Sample of Israelis 50 Years and Older

Abstract

This study evaluates population group differences in the cognitive functioning of Israelis 50 years and older. Groups were defined based on year of arrival and preferred language (e.g., veteran Israeli Jews, who arrived in Israel more than two decades ago; new immigrants from the former Soviet Union; and Israeli Arabs). Conducting a cross-sectional analysis of the first wave of SHARE-Israel (the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe), the authors found that relative to veteran Israeli Jews, new immigrants from the former Soviet Union were significantly more likely to rate their reading ability as impaired. In addition, there was a significant interaction between population group and education on the arithmetic task. Whereas both veteran Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs were less likely to demonstrate impaired performance on this task as their level of education increased, new immigrants from the former Soviet Union were less impaired than the other two groups, unrelated to educational level. New immigrants were more impaired on the verbal learning task. However, relative to veteran Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs were significantly less likely to have an impaired performance on the verbal recall task. Findings are somewhat in contrast with the international literature that has consistently shown that the majority culture outperforms relative to ethnic minorities.