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Comment by ivan_gammel | Hacker News Reader

Have a look at Israel with their incredibly high fertility rate among secular population. They have the same access to social media, games etc. What they also have is a set of family friendly policies, which make it easier for couples to plan their life and their careers. Culture and lifestyle also matters, of course. It will be interesting to see how living in densely populated urban area vs typical American suburbia affects your chances to meet a partner.

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Secular Israeli fertility rate does not seem materially higher.

https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2022/08/18/...

https://archive.is/8FAsi/4ca20b298a776c0318c24337c475fa4dce0...

https://www.taubcenter.org.il/en/research/israels-exceptiona...

>Though Haredim are just 13% of the population, their offspring make up 19% of Israeli children under the age of 14, and 24% of those under the age of four.

>As can be seen, secular Jews are roughly at 2 children per woman and "religious" (but not Haredi) are at 4. Once again, other OECD countries are roughly between 1.0 and 1.7 and falling. And they, too, have a share of religious traditionalists.

My point is, excluding Haredi their fertility rate is high enough for population growth and it is significantly higher than in other developed countries even among secular population. Naïve hypotheses like above cannot explain that.

Replacement fertility rate is 2.1. There is also a built in commonality in Israel as everyone has something in common, they are all jews. Your point of higher than most of the western world is very valid though but I wonder if the "we are all X here" lends itself to that.

I think Israeli society is more diverse than that. Do Soviet jews have a big sense of unity with Mizrahim? Why is this different from any European country, where share of immigrants is probably lower than in Israel?

I don’t think that Jewish organizations like Birthright discriminate. They want all Jews to have children. I can’t think of anything equivalent to Birthright that operates on a national level.

How Birthright, a non-profit that organizes travel to Israel for young adults from other countries[1], is relevant to Israeli demographics? On their scale of operation, even if they had a significant repatriation rate (which I doubt), it would probably be just a 1-2% of their target group.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthright_Israel

Once they are in Israel, probably. They are all members of a tiny world minority in their homeland surrounded by perceived enemies. That likely forms strong bonds plus they all serve in the military.

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