Israel’s Demographic Success
Israel and Worldwide Fertility Trends
In one sense, perhaps, the doomsayers could be forgiven—at least if one were to ignore the often transparently political motives behind their predictions. After all, modern society is indeed characterized by a trend of declining fertility rates. Even many poor and only partly modernized societies exhibit such a decline. But it is particularly marked in developed countries, where rising education and income levels correlate with a fertility rate that has often plunged to, or beyond, the level at which the population will shrink unless augmented by immigration. That level—the average “replacement rate” of 2.1 children per woman over the length of her childbearing years—has been effectively forgone by most economically developed countries.



