Now, Later or Never: The Changing Age of Childbearing in an Anomalous Fertility Setting

Petra Nahmias, Princeton University

Israel is a particularly interesting country in which to study demographic change. The different ethnic, religious and social groups display divergent trends in fertility, with political demography further complicating the issue. Period rates point to higher than expected fertility amongst nearly all sectors of Israeli society. However, is this a lasting phenomenon? Could changing ages of childbearing be influencing these rates? Is Israel becoming one of the few developed countries with above replacement fertility? The adjusted TFR is an exciting development to the traditional TFR. Thus far, the adjustment has been mostly applied to low fertility countries; in this paper the adjusted TFR has been utilized to explain fertility trends in a high fertility country. The results allow the traditional TFR to be disaggregated into tempo and quantum components. Preliminary results indicate that there has been a postponement of childbearing, which would suggest that cohort fertility rates maybe even higher.