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Source: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/israel-exception-fertility-rate
Why Israelis Defy the Collapse in Fertility that Has Swept Western Societies
(Tablet) Yannay Spitzer - Over the past two generations across the developed world, people have stopped having children. In the U.S. today, the average woman will give birth to 1.6 children over her lifetime - far below the level needed for a population to replace itself. In South Korea, fertility has collapsed from six to well below one child per woman. One country stands out against this global trend. Israel's Jewish population is the only clear exception. The deeper explanation lies in culture. Israel is, in a deep and measurable sense, a pronatalist society. This orientation may have roots in Jewish religious tradition, but it is widely shared by secular Jews as well. When asked about their ideal family size, 81% of secular Jewish women aged 25 to 39 report wanting three or more children - an average higher than that recorded in any other Western country. There is also an ideological component. Part of it can be understood as a multi-generational response to the Holocaust. Declarations by survivors that their personal "victory over Hitler" lies in having many grandchildren and great-grandchildren living in a Jewish state - and serving in its army - have become familiar motifs in public discourse. The writer was a faculty member in the Department of Economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2015-2026).