On June 17th, Tel Aviv University will celebrate the opening of a new academic center focused on population sciences. For too long, the many challenges posed by Israel’s idiosyncratic demographic dynamics have gone unstudied. It is critical that social scientists step up and begin systematic research and training. No subject matters more to the country’s future.

There is not a country in the developed world that has a demographic profile even remotely resembling Israel’s. In 1948, the new state counted around one million residents. By the close of 2025, that figure had climbed more than tenfold, to 10.2 million. Today Israel’s population is 77 percent Jewish and 21 percent Arab, with smaller minorities and non-citizens making up the rest.

Children under eighteen number roughly 3.2 million, or 31.5 percent of the population – compared to just 20.5 percent on average in Western societies. Indeed, even though 2025 brought a widely reported net outflow of 20,000 emigrants, Israel’s population still expanded by 110,000 over the year, propelled by 182,000 births – at a time when European and Asian countries shrink.

None of this is new. High fertility has been a constant feature of Israeli life across seventy-seven years of statehood. Far from declining, the Total Fertility Rate among Jewish women climbed 19 percent between 2002 and 2021, moving from 2.64 to 3.1 children per woman. A gradual reversal has followed: by the end of 2024, Israel’s birthrates had slipped to 2.87, dipping just under 3.0 for the first time in many years.

Nonetheless, Israel still towers over every other OECD country, with a rate roughly twice the European average of about 1.5. The contrast holds regionally as well: while much of the Middle East has seen birth rates fall to replacement levels, Israel’s fertility has stayed remarkably high.

Of course, these averages mask profound contrasts between Israel’s different tribes. Haredi women average roughly 6.75 children, while non-ultra-Orthodox Jewish women........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)