Secular and other non-hareidi Jewish schoolchildren in Israel will be in the minority within a generation if current population trends continue, according to a poll published in the U.S. magazine Foreign Policy. The poll is based on figures from Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics.
Foreign Policy predicts that by 2020, most schoolchildren will belong to the hareidi-religious or Arab Muslim communities. By 2030, hareidi-religious and Arab schoolchildren will comprise roughly 60 percent of the students in Israel's primary schools.
Also in 2030, hareidi-religious and Arab youths are expected to make up almost 50 percent of those aged 18 and 19, the age when Israelis from other religious and ethnic groups are required to serve in the IDF and the youngest age at which Israelis can vote.
The study shows the number of hareidi religious Jews will quickly outnumber Arab Muslims and Christians, who currently comprise almost 20 percent of the Israeli population compared with the hareidi-religious community's 11 percent. By 2030, there will be more hareidi-religious Jewish students in Israel's elementary schools than Arab students, the study found.
The research is based on current figures, which reveal that the average Israeli Arab woman has 3.6 children and the average hareidi-religious Jewish woman has seven children. However, the Arab birthrate has been dropping for some time, particularly in the Muslim community, where the average fertility rate dropped from 4.7 children per woman in 2000 to 3.9 in 2008.
At the same time, fertility rates among secular Israeli Jews have risen in recent years, in part as a result of the rising Russian Jewish birthrate. Fertility rates in hareidi-religious communities have remained relatively stable over the past decade.
The Foreign Policy study is similar to a study presented in 2005 by demographer Professor Sergio DellaPergola. He believes that the hareidi-religious community in Israel will double in size by 2020, comprising roughly 17 percent of the general population. His study was based on voting patterns as well as CBS data.