Israel's fertility rate comparable to U.S. 'baby boom,' study finds

Among the population of ultra-Orthodox women, the average fertility rate is somewhere in the area of seven children per family.

Illustrative image of a newborn baby (photo credit: INGIMAGE)
Illustrative image of a newborn baby
(photo credit: INGIMAGE)
The fertility rate in Israel is the much higher than all other members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD),  the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, an independent, non-partisan, socioeconomic research institute based in Jerusalem found in a study released on Monday.
According to the study, women in Israel have on average 3.1 kids each during the course of their lifetime, compared to the next country in line, Mexico with 2.15, that is nearly one extra child for every family across the board.
The fertility rate in Israel has risen significantly over the past two decades. Now, the birth rate in Israelis comparable to the "baby boom" in the United States after the second world war. Countries who share numbers most similar to Israel's current birth rate are its geographical neighbors Egypt and Syria.
Two factors that encourage the high birth rate in Israel are government policy factors that allow women to easily balance work life with their family lives as well as the cultural and religious aspect of life in Israel.
Among the population of ultra-Orthodox women, the average fertility rate is somewhere in the area of seven children per family.
However, the rise in birth rates over the past two decades is contributed to the combined effort of both the secular and traditional populations inhabiting the country.
For context, the non-observant women of Israel average 2.2 kids per family, which is also higher than any other OECD country.
However, among the Arab sector family size is consistent with countries in the developed world, and have less children then their Jewish-Israeli neighbors, even declining to a certain extent significantly since the 1960's.
Even though the employment rates are higher and women in the ultra-Orthodox sector have children later in their lives than they would 20 years ago, the birth rates are still higher than those of other OECD countries.
In many other developed countries birth rates are going down as women shoulder more tasks in the work place and fertility rates diminish, in Israel as said above, this is quite the opposite.