In the list of cities (above 10,000 residents) by overall fertility rate, Jerusalem ranks in 20th place out of 136 cities, with a rate of 3.79 children per woman. At the top of the list is Modi’in Illit, in which each woman bears an average of 7.2 children in the course of her lifetime, and Beitar Illit – with 6.8. Next among the high rankers on the list are primarily Haredi and Bedouin cities. The list ends with the northern Israeli towns of Majdal Shams (1.7) and Kabul (1.6), in both of which (together with about 30 similar-sized towns in Israel, according to the list published by the CBS) the overall fertility rate falls below the replacement rate – the fertility rate at which, over the long term, the population neither grows nor declines (2.1).
The overall fertility rate in Jerusalem is composed of rates that are very different for the Arab population (3.0) and for the Jewish population (4.3). The number of children in Jerusalem’s Arab society, like in Israel at large (where the rate is 2.8), is in decline, and in Jerusalem it has been lower than the rate among Jews for about a decade. Among the Jewish population, the rate is significantly higher than the rate among the Jewish population in Israel at large (2.9), stemming mainly from the makeup of the Jewish population in the city, which has a high proportion of Haredi and religious populations. The fertility rate of the Haredi population (in Israel) is 6.6, and has been stable for about a decade. The fertility rate of the religious population in Israel is about 3.9 and is in decline; the rate among the secular population in Israel is 2.0 children per woman, and has been in decline for about five years.
