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Compared with the rapidly developing political and military situation in the Middle East, demographics change at a glacial pace. Yet demographic developments in Israel in recent years have been unfolding with unusual speed, and seem to be accelerating.
In the first 12 years of the current century the number of Arab births in Israel has almost completely flat-lined at around 40,000 per annum. This despite the growing size of the Arab population, which means that the Arab birth rate – births relative to population size – has fallen. Over the same period, Jewish births have risen from 95,000 to 130,000. In the first four months of 2013, the most recent period for which data is available, Jewish births were up 38 percent during the same period for 2001, and Arab births down 6%.
This means that the Arab share of Israeli births, at a little over 22% of the total, is now not much higher than the overall Arab share of the population, at a little under 21% of the total, and well down from its peak of around 30%. The birth rates of Arabs and Jews in Israel are close to converging. This is both significant and unsurprising.
It is significant because it represents a dramatic drop in Arab fertility rates. Since the Arab population is younger and has more women of child-bearing age relative to its size than the Jewish population, it would be expected to have a higher birth rate. The fact that the birth rates of the two communities are close to convergence means that we are nearing the point, if we have not already passed it, when the average Jewish woman in Israel must be having more children than the average Arab woman.