Israel has the highest fertility rate in the advanced world. In some ways, it’s like having won bingo on the Titanic.
Israelis are in dire need of good news. Even though the war in Gaza appears to be professionally and efficiently moving forward, there is this sense that Israel is not winning it outright. The spokesman for the IDF should be considered for a court-martial for treason. He said last week that one cannot defeat Hamas because Hamas is an ideology or a way of thinking. His words were enough to get the Hamas triumvirate out of their jacuzzis in Doha, throw on a towel, and declare victory. While I know that the fellow meant to say that the Jew/Israel hatred is something that will not be extinguished in the current war, his choice of words simply lit up the Arab world: the Zionists admit that they are losing! This is very dangerous as it only prolongs the fighting. Like the Congressman in World War 2 who blurted out that the Japanese depth charges explode too shallow to harm US subs and did not get the memo, “loose lips sink ships”. The US went on to lose 52 subs and 3,500 officers and crew in the Pacific theater.
As Israel is pretty much the only country in the world that is accused of having no right to exist, Israelis are sensitive to getting international recognition. It took Israel years and a lot of internal jiggering to get accepted to the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). For Israelis, it is another badge of legitimacy; for Israel’s enemies, it means nothing. And last week, Israel was declared as having the highest fertility rate in the OECD at 2.9 births per woman. For the official record, Israel was the only country with a value above the 2.1 needed to keep a population at its present size. All of the other economically-advanced countries are well under 2.1 and this outcome has some severe implications. Mexico came in second at 1.8. The average for the OECD members went from 3.3 in 1960 to 1.5 today.
No one has been screaming about low fertility rates and their political implications more than Mark Steyn, who wrote an entire book on the subject. Countries that don’t do wholesale immigration like Japan and Russia are feeling the effects of low birth rates already today. The Japanese are hoping that robots will make up for the millions of missing Japanese children and young adults needed in industry and take care of elders who tend to live longer and longer. Russia and Ukraine will feel the low birth rates after losing tens of thousands of soldiers and not being able to replace them with many new children. Europe and the US have papered over the problems by bringing in millions of aliens, generally without vetting them or thinking too much about what their ideologies or physical presence will do to their societies. Europe is suffering from millions of Muslims who do not want to integrate into local society, while the US physically has no place to put the estimated 7 million illegals who have entered primarily through the open southern border during the Biden presidency. Be careful not to step over someone sleeping on the floor at airports in Boston, Chicago, etc.
If Donald Trump is elected and succeeds in rounding up and throwing out millions of Mexicans and others who came into the US without papers, then Americans might begin to feel the impact of low birth rates. Like in Italy where there are 100 grandparents for every 30 grandchildren—a complete inversion of the big Italian families of the 1950’s—US schools will see fewer children in succeeding classes and employers will realize that their pool of potential candidates will shrink. Automation will address some of the missing hands, but robots do not pay into Social Security. I went to a high school that, due to the Baby Boom, had to open a completely new campus (which you can see in the movie, Uncle Buck). Then, the next generation shrank, and the new campus was alternatively closed and/or partially reopened. If trends continue, even the original school which held 4,800 high school students in my day, will shut down various wings for lack of students.
Israel’s 2.9 births per woman is a composite of a mixed society. Orthodox (and ultra-orthodox) women have a 5.0 rate, Arab women 3.0, and non-religious Israeli women 2.0. The high ultraorthodox birth rate is one reason that there is pressure to find a solution to the participation of ultraorthodox men in the army. The ultraorthodox are still quite a minority in the country, but their presence is growing. One can see ultraorthodox men and women more frequently in the workplace and in the army. Many ultraorthodox women work at high-tech firms or programs for large national or international conglomerates. Some actually program as civilians for Israel's premier SIGINT unit, 8200.
It is no coincidence that orthodox women have the highest birth rate in the country. The first commandment of the Torah is “Be fruitful and multiply,” and they take it quite seriously. And this is one of the reasons why various efforts in different countries to convince families to grow simply do not work. Free houses, tax breaks, one-time payments, and the like are all wonderful, but in the end of the day, bringing up a kid means not sleeping, sitting with him or her in a clinic at 2 in the morning for an earache, giving up on much of one’s personal life to be with the child, and outlays well beyond whatever governments offer. The Western world desperately needs more children. Without some religious revival, nothing will convince women to have more children at the expense of a career or personal freedom. Pakistan is a poor, religious country. Its birth rate is 3.47 children per woman--down from 6.80 in 1960 as the country becomes more economically advanced.
Some contours of post-war Gaza may be coming into focus. Israel is leveling all structures within a kilometer of the border fence with Israel. It has also built and paved a large east-west road that cuts the Gaza Strip in half. There is talk of some type of Arab administration, but it would appear that there will be no more open Gaza-Egypt border. Stay tuned as the Rafah operation is supposed to end in the next few weeks. Then all eyes will look to the north of the country and a potential all-out war with Hezbollah.
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