Thread by @HeTows

I don't know what the explanation of the "Israeli demographic miracle" is, but I know this: its only truly miraculous component is one of the seemingly least impressive ones. Namely, secular Jewish TFR, which isn't sky-high but merely hovers around replacement level. Thread. /1

Israel's high fertility (a TFR close to 3, completely unique in the developed world) is often discussed in vague, general terms, linking the phenomenon to religion, nationalism, and "siege mentality". It's often ignored that Israel is an archipalego of several different tribes./2

Most of these "tribes" have fertility levels that are completely unremarkable when compared to similar groups in other countries. E.g., Haredi TFR is known to be very high in Israel (6.3 lately). But it's similarly high in the US; a few years ago it was almost identical. /3

The national-religious also have high fertility (somewhat under 4). But this, too, is not a miracle. It has an obvious explanation in terms of pro-natalist convictions, and similar groups in the US (the broad spectrum of Orthodoxy left of Haredi Judaism) are also very fertile. /4

What about Israeli Arabs? Their TFR is still high, but rapidly falling; 2.6 most recently, if memory serves well. This is completely unremarkable and quite similar to Arab fertility in other countries in the region, such as Jordan and Egypt. Unlike Haredi & National-Religious /5

fertility, which are post-modern (these groups were exposed to modernity and developed a way of life that protects their high fertility from it), high Arab fertility is pre-modern. These groups are *currently* modernizing, and their fertiliy is accordingly high, but falling. /6

Next up, we have the religiously unclassified "others", who are overwhelmingly post-Soviet immigrants with partial Jewish ancestry or married to a Jewish immigrant. They have very low fertility (1.26 most recently), comparable to recent data from Russia and Ukraine. /7

Masorti Jews are a bit of a quandary because it's difficult to find a comparable population elsewhere. Perhaps Mizrahim in the US and Sephardim in France are similar. I suspect they have similar, moderately high TFR (around 2.3), but I don't have enough data to show this. /8

This leaves us with secular Jews, whose seemingly modest TFR (very slightly under replacement most recently, I think 1.98) is truly miraculous compared to any relevantly analogous population. E.g. in the US, non-Orthodox TFR was 1.4 as of 2021. /9

Americans classified as "non-religious" also had a TFR of around 1.4 as of 2019; today it's almost certainly even lower.

Here's relevant aspect of Israeli secular Jews: they are an exceptionally left-leaning group. /10

In 2022, almost 80% of them voted for the opposition, and barely above 20% for the coalition parties (overwhelmingly for Likud).

So another comparison could be US states that very heavily voted for the Democrats, like Vermont, Massachussets and Oregon - all of them under 1.5 /11

So, what's the demographic miracle? There is a miracle, but it's more modest than people think. They usually wonder why it is that Israel's TFR is 2.9 rather than, say, 1.6. But this isn't the miracle. Around 1/3 of Israel's adult population consists of secular Jews and 2/3 /12

of everyone else. Secular Jews have a TFR close to 2; the other 2/3 together have a TFR of 3.37. That latter number is completely unsurprising; the only surprising number is secular Jewish fertility, which "should" be around 1.3-1.4 given the relevant comparison classes. /13

If secular Jews had a TFR of 1.4, Israel's TFR would be around 2.7. The Israeli demographic miracle is the question of why Israel's TFR is 2.9 rather than 2.7.

This is what needs explanation. The rest is explained by the prevalence of globally fertile sub-populations. /14-end