Israel’s population growth hits historical low

Research by the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel indicates a significant shift in patterns of fertility and demographic growth in Israel. According to the findings, the rate of population growth in 2025 will be just 0.9%, the lowest since the state was founded in 1948. Among the reasons are net emigration in the past two years, and a consistent decline in fertility among young people, even in sections of the population that led demographic growth in the past.

The study, entitled “Israel 2025: A Demographic Crossroads”, was carried out by Prof. Alex Weinreb, an expert on demography and director of research at the Taub Center. “Since the establishment of the State, Israel’s population growth rate has fallen below 1.5% only twice: to 1.42% in 1981 and to 1.35% in 1983. Israel’s growth rate in 2025 is set to break that record: according to our estimates, it will be about 0.9%,” his report states.

One of the main reasons for the decline is emigration, which has become especially significant in the past two years. Israel generally has net immigration, but in 2024 and 2025, more people left than arrived. A substantial proportion of the emigrants are people who came to Israel from Russia and Ukraine because of the war there and left shortly after they arrived, but emigration by native-born Israelis is also growing, and the net emigration cannot be dismissed as a temporary, technical problem.

Fertility declining across all sectors

Besides negative migration, the low population growth is also a product of declining natural increase. In 2016, the rate of natural increase was 1.6%. In 2025, it will fall to 1.3%. The study finds that the decline is particularly sharp in Israel’s Arab population, in which the rate of natural population increase has fallen from 2.1% to 1.6%. This is despite the long life expectancy in Israel, which at 83.7 is surpassed by only three OECD countries: Switzerland, Spain, and Japan. The events of October 7 2023 and the subsequent war depressed the life expectancy figure to a degree, especially among men.

The study also shows that the declining trend in fertility characterizes all sections of the population. In 2018, the Taub Center published a study entitled “Israel’s Exceptional Fertility,” of which Prof. Weinreb was one of the authors. The study presented data indicating an exceptionally high fertility rate in Israel in comparison with other high-income developed countries.

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Although Israel continues to have high birth rates in comparison with other Western countries, the gaps are narrowing. In the Jewish population, there has been a consistent decline in the average number of births per woman, across all sub-sectors, even if the rate is still relatively high. The decline is especially steep among women aged 25 to 34, which is the main age group for estimating future fertility.

The report states that among haredi (ultra-Orthodox) women, for example, the average number of births among women aged up to 34 has fallen from 5.9 to 5.1.

On the basis of the current trends, the study projects the number of births per woman up to the end of their fertile years at age 40-44. According to the model, by 2039 average births per woman in the haredi population will decline to 4.3. Among religious women, fertility is expected to decline to about 2.3 children per woman, and among secular women the decline will be to 1.6 children. “Parallel trends are also expected in Arab society, where fertility is projected to decline to 2.7 among religious women and to 2.0 among non-religious women,” the report states. These figures remain high by Western standards, but they are substantially lower than the norm in Israel in the past.

“We are on the verge of a new era in Israel’s demographic development,” Prof. Weinreb says. “The peak period of natural increase has passed, and this is in parallel with a less stable, and even negative, net migration balance, two factors that represent a clear break with past patterns.

“In the light of this, it is clear that migration policy is becoming more and more important for strengthening demographic growth in Isael in the coming decades. But it will be possible to set policy in this area only when we know more about the relative characteristics of the Israelis who leave Israel and the people who arrive. Without such information, policy will rest on only a partial picture.”

Taub Center president Prof. Avi Weiss said, “The social and economic challenges of the State of Israel at the end of 2025, after two years of war, are large, and the report puts a spotlight on one of the most important problems requiring an answer.”

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on December 31, 2025.

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