Totally agree with your wife! A much better look. :):) (Although, according to my wife, I'm not in a position to cast judgement when it comes to sartorial matters).
1) If housing affordability is a key driver of fertility - that is: expensive housing retards fertility but desired family size is unchanged. Then we should see states with a lower housing costs (ie: the MidWest have higher fertility than California or New York). This should apply intra-nationally and also inter-nationally but I haven't seen any analysis of the data.
2) Japan is a counter example here - housing has gotten far more affordable since 1989 but fertility has only gone down. Israeli fertility appears to have had a secular rise (pardon the pun!) since around 1991-2 in spite of housing costs soaring in the period since. Interestingly enough this also coincided with the wave of migration of Jews from the former USSR.
3) Without trying to wade into Middle Eastern politics, I really don't think that Israel is a good example for fertility trends. It's an outlier in may respects. You can cite childcare availability (France, Sweden are also very generous unlike the USA) social benefits (but then again the Scandinavian states are far more generous) and family ties (if so, Southern European states like Italy or Greece should be fertility frontrunners!) or economic prosperity (what about China, South Korea?).
4) Rather I think that the atypically high fertility in Israel even if you exclude the Haredi/Ultra-Orthodox sector is due to the unique socio-political situation in Israel. The view of Israel as a uniquely vulnerable state, demographic competition with the Arabs, the risk of losing a child to military activity and a general religious awareness even amongst the relatively secular population - these are all factors that don't have any close analogue anywhere else in the world.
5) An interesting hypothesis is that societies wrestling with a hostile geopolitical environment and 'existential threats' may have an increase in fertility. I would watch fertility trends in Russia and Ukraine for the next 5 years and compare them to the Chinese case. If Russia has a fertility increase whereas China does not then this hypothesis warrants further investigation.
Your post today was very clear and helpful. As a English Jew, who has lots of Israeli connections I think you did a good job of showing how secular jews in Israel have more kids. Apart from IVF, the other areas that may factor in Israels higher birth rate are 1. childcare is available at state nurseries from 7am until 7pm - parents can drop kids off at school early. 2. its a small country, parents live very close to grandparents, who take on a lot of the child rearing duties. 3. Sephardi (North Africa) /Mizrahi (Arab-Jews) secular families tend to be still quite traditional versus Ashkenazi families in the diaspora. Regards, Philip Goldsmith
Totally agree with your wife! A much better look. :):) (Although, according to my wife, I'm not in a position to cast judgement when it comes to sartorial matters).
Thanks for the post Russell.
Some thoughts if I may:
1) If housing affordability is a key driver of fertility - that is: expensive housing retards fertility but desired family size is unchanged. Then we should see states with a lower housing costs (ie: the MidWest have higher fertility than California or New York). This should apply intra-nationally and also inter-nationally but I haven't seen any analysis of the data.
2) Japan is a counter example here - housing has gotten far more affordable since 1989 but fertility has only gone down. Israeli fertility appears to have had a secular rise (pardon the pun!) since around 1991-2 in spite of housing costs soaring in the period since. Interestingly enough this also coincided with the wave of migration of Jews from the former USSR.
3) Without trying to wade into Middle Eastern politics, I really don't think that Israel is a good example for fertility trends. It's an outlier in may respects. You can cite childcare availability (France, Sweden are also very generous unlike the USA) social benefits (but then again the Scandinavian states are far more generous) and family ties (if so, Southern European states like Italy or Greece should be fertility frontrunners!) or economic prosperity (what about China, South Korea?).
4) Rather I think that the atypically high fertility in Israel even if you exclude the Haredi/Ultra-Orthodox sector is due to the unique socio-political situation in Israel. The view of Israel as a uniquely vulnerable state, demographic competition with the Arabs, the risk of losing a child to military activity and a general religious awareness even amongst the relatively secular population - these are all factors that don't have any close analogue anywhere else in the world.
5) An interesting hypothesis is that societies wrestling with a hostile geopolitical environment and 'existential threats' may have an increase in fertility. I would watch fertility trends in Russia and Ukraine for the next 5 years and compare them to the Chinese case. If Russia has a fertility increase whereas China does not then this hypothesis warrants further investigation.
Regards, Clement
Your post today was very clear and helpful. As a English Jew, who has lots of Israeli connections I think you did a good job of showing how secular jews in Israel have more kids. Apart from IVF, the other areas that may factor in Israels higher birth rate are 1. childcare is available at state nurseries from 7am until 7pm - parents can drop kids off at school early. 2. its a small country, parents live very close to grandparents, who take on a lot of the child rearing duties. 3. Sephardi (North Africa) /Mizrahi (Arab-Jews) secular families tend to be still quite traditional versus Ashkenazi families in the diaspora. Regards, Philip Goldsmith