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Wednesday, February 24, 1999
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Study: Many children aren't necessarily a blessing
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By Efraim Ya'ar
The traditional expression used to describe large families - families blessed with many children - is loaded with an implicit value judgment and carries the assumption that there is some positive value in having lots of children.
But differences between the birthrate among ultra-Orthodox families compared to national religious families show that there's no uniformity in how the religious community regards the value of many children.
Research undertaken by Prof. Dov Friedlander and Dr. Carole Feldmann in 1993 showed that ultra-Orthodox women had an average of seven births each while the figure for national religious women was a lower 4.5. Data from the 1995 census shows that the average birth rate for all Jewish women in the country stood at 2.06 births per woman, proving a significant correlation between religious devotion and family size.
Those who fulfill the biblical injunction to be fruitful and multiply are not supposed to do so for material benefit. But who exactly should be responsible for nurturing these children. Aid for large families can come from two sources: voluntary aide from the family or charity or state aide from various budgets.
Research by Momi Dahan published by The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies last year showed that in 1995, 55 percent of the gross income of ultra-Orthodox families in Jerusalem came from the state, while state support averaged only 17 percent of the income of non-ultra-Orthodox families. There are similar differences in the proportion of state support in other towns and cities.
This means that those people limit their number of children according to their individual financial means effectively support those who do not plan the size of their families. One could of course justify this subsidization if one could demonstrate that families with many children are of benefit to society and the state. This approach was part of classic Zionist ideology - one of whose central aims was to increase the relative proportion of Jews in the country both through natural growth and immigration.
© copyright 1998 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved
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