Fertility of Muslim Arabs in Israel was around 10 children per woman in the 1960s. Among the highest level recorded on global scale. During the 1960s and the 1970s it declined, as one would expect. And then something happened in the 1980s: the decline stopped, contrary to all expectations. For about 20 years in a row Muslim Arab fertility in Israel stayed at 4-5 children per woman. It was the longest fertility stall recorded, again, on the global scene.
Daniel Staetsky, Jewish World in Data
What was not said about this…? That Israeli Arabs react to the reality of the political conflict with Jews and try to outbreed them (the demographic weapon hypothesis). That the secularization process stopped because of the appearance of the Islamic movement in Israel (the Islamic hypothesis). That residential and cultural segregation of Arabs slows down a change in gender roles (the oppression hypothesis). That financial support offered by the State of Israel to large families encourages them (the support hypothesis).
Politization stole many discoveries. A sneaky feeling that Muslim Arab fertility could be somehow due to their ‘situation’ subverted proper analysis, such is my guess. Fertility stalled elsewhere, in the Middle East and in the other places-this was never linked to what happened to Muslim Arabs. Their marriage patterns remained insufficiently documented. The very sudden stop to their vigorous fertility decline raised no brows. Pursuing these questions, all of them and each one of them, would have led to the solution of the puzzle.
Anyhow…the puzzle has been solved. Muslim Arab fertility so vigorously declined in the 1970s because Arab population was in the grip of the ‘marriage squeeze’ – a situation where a significant proportion of women could not find a groom, remained single, contributing to strong decline in fertility. In the mid-1980s, this ended, the ‘marriage squeeze’ released it grip, more women could marry, and, naturally, fertility bounced up. As simple as that. And what created the ‘marriage squeeze’ in the first place? Material prosperity generated by the Arabs’ functioning in the Jewish economy. Voila!