A drone view of Jerusalem with the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg

Earlier this year, Statistics Canada reported that Canada’s total fertility rate for 2024 had dropped to a new “ultra low” of 1.25. Total fertility rate (TFR) is the average number of children a woman would have over her lifetime. Excluding immigration, a TFR value of 2.1 is necessary for population stability. A continuing low value of 1.25, without incoming migration, would result in a drastically reduced population within a few decades. The economic downside of a shift toward a more aged population might include labor shortages and increased pressure on health and social support systems.

Canadians should not be surprised. Canadian journalists Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson, described this eventuality in their 2020 book Empty Planet. This change is attributed to urbanization, delayed childbearing and reduced familial and religious pressure to have babies.

Canada is not alone. All 38 member countries in the OECD, save one, are reporting fertility numbers below the replacement number of 2.1, and some like South Korea, Italy, and Japan are in the same ‘ultra low” category as Canada.

The one outlier is Israel, where fertility rates, calculated for both secular and religious Jewish Israelis, has remained above the replacement value. In fact, earlier this year, The Times of Israel reported that the TFR value for Jewish Israelis was 3.07 children per woman in 2024, up from 3.03 in 2022, a number about double the OECD average, and higher than for Arab Israelis.

However, the real surprise, where Israel and world demographics are concerned, are the results of a comprehensive multi-center, multi-authored study published in 2020 in The Lancet, a leading medical journal. The article evaluated fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenarios for 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100. The overall result is the prediction that the global population will peak at 9.7 billion in 2064 and decline to about 8.8 billion by 2100.

The report also predicted that the fertility number for 97 % of the countries studied, will be below the replacement fertility value by the year 2100. A few, such as Niger, Chad and South Sudan, will be among the holdouts, with numbers above replacement, while the predicted value for Israel will be just barely below replacement. In other words, fertility will fall in Israel as well, but at a much slower rate than for any other developed nation.

Twenty-three nations, including, for example, Latvia, Ukraine, Portugal, South Korea and Japan could experience population reductions of more than 50%. In some cases, Ukraine, for example, emigration along with reduced fertility will be the cause. Canada and the US will experience modest population increases because of immigration, while the population of Russia will decrease by about 30%. China’s population will decrease by almost half and Nigeria will overtake China as the country with the second largest population, after India.

What about Israel? Today the population of Israel is a little over 10 million, about 80% Jews (and others) and 20% Arabs. The Lancet article predicts that Israel will have a population of about 24 million by the year 2100. Yes, 24 million! It is important to keep in mind that this value is the average of a range, and the range for Israel is 13 million to 40 million. (The range reflects a 95% confidence interval; meaning there is a five percent chance the range does not include the true value.)

These are predictions, not certainties. The numbers they rely on assume some degree of stability over time and when it comes to the Middle East stability is an oxymoron. Nevertheless, the population numbers predicted for Israel should be taken seriously.

First, Israel is already one of the most densely populated places in the world. How will the country accommodate the increased millions?

Second, study of Jewish demographics in the US indicates that with the exception of the ten percent of American Jews who are Orthodox, Jewish birth rates are even lower than that of the general population. It appears that based on the population data, the population center of Jewish life is shifting to Israel. A Jewish diaspora will continue to exist, but its relevance to Jewish continuity will likely diminish.

Finally, the non-Jewish world will have to accept that Israel and the Jewish people are an integral part of the Middle East. No amount of self-delusion will make this fact go away.

Jacob Sivak, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a retired professor, University of Waterloo.