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Cake day: August 12th, 2024

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  • In Israel bekommen auch berufstätige, säkulare Frauen mehr Kinder als hier. https://nationalpost.com/opinion/danielle-kubes-the-truth-behind-israels-curiously-high-fertility-rate

    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?”

    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).

    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.