Socioeconomic and Institutional Factors Underlying Fertility Stagnation among Muslims in Israel

Michael Shalev, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Guy Stecklov, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The fertility of Muslims in Israel began a dramatic decline from levels near 8 children per woman in the 1950s to a little over 4 in the early 1980s. However, since then the apparent fertility transition appears to have stalled. Our study explores the role of household and community level forces in the stalled transition of Muslims in Israel using uniquely constructed, multilevel, merged dataset which links census data from 1983 and 1995 with birth registration records and additional community level indicators. We evaluate a number of potential explanations for the stagnation in fertility. Our analyzes are based on both fixed and random-effects models allowing us to both explore the role of heterogeneity in community effects on fertility as well as to attempt to purge unobservable differences between communities from the analysis.