Israel at 75: While you may be tempted to point a finger at religious Jews or Muslims for Israel’s high fertility rate, that doesn’t tell the whole story
Article content
As Israel marks the 75th anniversary of its founding this year, the National Post is hosting a five-month celebration of the “startup” nation, telling the remarkable story of its rebirth and resilience against all odds.
The strollers were jostling for space, narrowly missing each other as parents steered them roughly over curbs and pushed them up hills. Despite the fact that Jaffa Road is a main thoroughfare in Jerusalem, with wide sidewalks and no cars, there still didn’t appear to be enough room for them all.
Most of the babies and children were in side-by-side double strollers, passed out under fleece blankets, but plenty were walking beside their parents, or were cuddled up comfortably in a carrier on mom’s chest.
This was during Passover, so Jerusalem was bound to be busy at all hours and full of religious Jews who tend to have many more kids than the average Israeli. But, as it turns out, Israel’s fertility rate is high in general — the highest in the OECD by a wide margin.
Advertisement 3
Article content
Israel’s fertility rate is 2.9, which is nearly double’s Canada’s fertility rate of 1.5. Few other countries in the OECD even reached replacement level fertility. Israel’s fertility rates are more closely aligned with its Middle Eastern neighbours — Jordan, Syria and Egypt — but it’s an outlier among developed countries with advanced economies, educated populations and high female workforce participation.
While you may be tempted to point a finger at religious Jews or Muslims for Israel’s high fertility rate, that doesn’t tell the whole story.
The ultra-Orthodox in Israel do have an extremely high fertility rate — over 6.6, but it’s actually declining. And they only account for around 13 per cent of the population. Meanwhile, the Arab fertility rate has dropped to three, from an incredibly high 9.3 in 1960.
Advertisement 4
Article content
The real story here is the high birth rate of traditional and secular Jewish couples in Israel, who make up most of the country. Observant Jews (religious but not ultra-Orthodox) have an average of four children, while secular women have an average of two.
When surveyed, Israelis say the ideal family size is three, while in North America, Europe and Australia, the ideal family size is considered to be two. I have lots of friends in Canada who say they want to remain child-free by choice or be “one and done,” but those concepts haven’t yet entered into Israeli discourse.
“Anyone who lives here is expected to have children,” Sigal Gooldin, a Hebrew University sociologist, told the New York Times. “In casual conversation you will be asked how many children you have and if you say one, people will ask why only one, and if you say two, why only two?”
Advertisement 5
Article content
Why both moderately religious and non-religious couples are choosing to procreate so often is a mystery to most demographers, as it is in opposition to trends in Europe, North America and Asia.
Israeli women work at almost the same rates as they do here, with 59 per cent workforce participation compared to 61 per cent in Canada. But they get far less time off when they have babies — around three months compared to 18 in Canada. Similar to us, they have a strong social safety net with subsidized daycare and public health care. But they also share some of Canada’s struggles — their housing and grocery prices are extremely high, for example.
The real secret to Israel’s fertility rates appears to be cultural. The family is at the absolute centre of Israeli life. Getting married and having kids is the highest cultural value. (Any Jewish person in either Israel or the diaspora will attest to the immense pressure to marry — it’s as if a great tragedy has befallen you if you have the “misfortune” of remaining single past 26).
Advertisement 6
Article content
And Israel puts its money where its pronatalist mouth is — it’s the only country to fully subsidize unlimited in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments for all women until they are 45 or have two children. The policy receives little criticism, despite the expense.
Israeli women undergo more IVF cycles per capita than in any other country. (It helps that Judaism doesn’t imbue an embryo outside the womb with any personhood, so they skip over any thorny ethical issues that Christians in America and many European countries have to contend with).
Holocaust generational trauma is also part of the story. The global population of Jews is still lower than what it was before the Second World War and there is a sense among Israelis that they have a duty to replenish those numbers.
Advertisement 7
Article content
But most importantly, children are seen as a blessing instead of a burden. While I often hear my Canadian friends lament the cost of having children and the impact more humans will have on climate change, I have never heard an Israeli do the same.
In Canada, one in five millennials report that they are actively delaying having children because they feel they can’t afford a family, according to a 2018 survey by the consulting firm BDO Canada. But economic struggles don’t tend to stop Israelis from having children. Adding a bunk bed to a two bedroom apartment is no big deal. It’s assumed that the money will come.
“We definitely need more money, and we have rising expenses,” Ron Ganot, an Israeli who sells baby wagons, told the Christian Science Monitor. “But I want a large family and the cost of living won’t stop us.”
Article content
Israelis simply lack the kind of nihilism seen amongst young Canadians today about the future. Despite the fact that they live in a land where they know they will have to send their children into the army at 18, they aren’t afraid to bring children into the world. Rather, they believe the only way to make a better world is to have children. To many Israelis, children represent life — and only life brings hope.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/danielle-kubes-the-truth-behind-israels-curiously-high-fertility-rate
No comments:
Post a Comment