Grok-AI
Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig – Proud of Israeli Democracy? Its Demography is Even Better!
With Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year – upon us, it’s the season for taking stock of where we’ve been and where we’re going. For Israel, in one very important area of life, it’s all good news – especially in comparison to other advanced democratic countries.
Take Japan, for example: over the past five years, that country has lost three million citizens. No, they weren’t kidnapped or drowned in another tsunami. Rather, that’s the much larger number of those who passed away, compared to all Japanese babies born in the same period. And Japan isn’t the worst “offender” in this regard. That dubious record goes to South Korea with 0.7 children per woman!
The comparison with Israel is stark. The Jewish State is the only country among all 38 OECD (advanced) nations that has a birthrate above “replacement” (considered 2.1 kids per female). As of 2025, Israel’s ratio is 3.06 – double the overall OECD average: 1.5! (For a breakdown of Israel’s various population sectors, see my postscript below.)
What’s the importance here? More than anything else, female fertility is the best indicator of a country’s social health. A high rate means that the population sees a rosy future for the country; a low rate is a sign of social pessimism. And even if pessimism is not why people are birthing at a lower-than-replacement rate, they should be depressed because it means that their children (if they have any at all), will be living in a much more difficult situation nationally. For example, South Korea today has 42 million people. At its present rate of fertility, by the end of this century it will end up with a mere 2 million souls, most of them elderly. To put it bluntly, there won’t be a South Korea left!
However, even if such a demographic wipeout doesn’t occur, it’s already too late for today’s low-fertility countries to avoid disastrous economic consequences in the near-to-midterm future. This involves a double curse. First, as the number of retirees equals or even surpasses the number of workers, social security outlays become untenable, while the health system comes under increasing pressure with the stark increase of old folks. The only reasonable response is increasing taxes to cover such expenses, but that dampens investment in new technologies etc. – not to mention leading to out-migration on the part of that country’s best and brightest (the main taxpayers). Second, social and economic dynamism declines with the overall population ageing. AI might ameliorate the worst effects of this phenomenon, but right now the future looks bleak socio-economically – indeed, for all the “Japans” around the post-industrial world.
Not so for Israelis who obviously are of a different mindset about their country’s future, given its high birth rate. But what explains such an anomaly in a country beset by incessant warfare, internal political strife, and a host of other problems? One can only venture some guesses:
1) Despite Israel’s high cost of living, the economy is in very good shape with unemployment low, as is inflation. Indeed, the shekel is one of the world’s strongest currencies, mostly due to the country’s hugely successful export industries.
2) Israel’s social welfare & health policies, especially for young families with children, is among the world’s best: long post-birth, paid time off from work; free baby clinics for vaccinations, periodic checkups etc.; and other natal subsidies. With population increase perceived as an important national goal, the workplace is also highly accommodating to pregnant employees and/or new mothers. Although there aren’t any hard statistics, it’s clear that most Israeli grandparents live near their grand/children, so that childcare is far less burdensome than in larger countries where many family generations live far apart.
3) Israel ranks eighth in the world regarding personal life satisfaction – largely due to Israelis’ very high level of social interaction: family, army buddies, school chums, and local neighbors. In short, although some aspects on the national level are somewhat of a mess, daily lives on the personal plane are emotionally satisfying.
4) Part of what makes live worth living in general is “meaning,” as in “I’m doing something important.” Israelis certainly feel that deeply, given the nation’s relatively short life and immense progress. Paradoxically, the fact that the country is under constant attack from some Middle Eastern “neighbors,” and that even parts of the world deny the country’s very legitimacy, in itself provides meaning to living in Israel – a historical “thumbing of the nose” at history – past and present.
5) And that leads to another aspect underlying Israel’s relatively high birth rate: the country is making up for the past 2000 years of Jewish persecution and even slaughter. Every newborn in Israel is a rebuke to those who in the past tried to expunge the Jewish People from history. This is not merely a reaction to the 20th-century Holocaust, but rather to many mini-holocausts through Jewish history. National fertility is the best sort of historical revenge – as well as a sharp poke in the eyes of current anti-Semites.
Of course, this is not to say that everything is fine. The one potentially significant fly in the ointment is that for the first time in many years, Israel had negative migration in 2025, with approximately 20,000 more Israelis leaving the country than arriving. Although this is not unusual for countries at war (reportedly, Russia had an out-migration of about one million people, most young men avoiding the draft, after it invaded Ukraine). However, for Israel – where overseas Israelis return to the country the minute war breaks out – such net emigration could be a danger signal if it continues over the coming years. Yet even with such a negative migration statistic, Israel’s population increased by 1.1% in 2025.
The overall bottom line: Israelis are optimistic about their future and therefore bring relatively large numbers of children into the world. True, the birthrate is less than it was a few decades ago (even among the Haredim!), but the country is still miles ahead of the world in this critically important statistic. No kidding!
Postscript: The following are Israel’s fertility rates by population sector, according to the country’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among Jews: Ultra-Orthodox: 6.5; Orthodox: 3.8; Traditional-religious (akin to “Conservative” in America): 2.8; Traditional, non-religious (like “Reform”): 2.2; Secular: 2.0. Among non-Jews: Moslem (including Bedouin): 2.75; Christian: 1.61; Druze: 1.66. Thus, Jewish fertility in Israel is higher than that of non-Jews; there is no non-Jewish “demographic time bomb” here.
