Influence of Religiosity on Israeli Fertility and its Implication to China

• In Event: Historical Interactions and Mutual Understandings: Jews and China

Abstract

In recent years, China seems to have stepped into the circle that other countries have gone through；the birth rate goes down with the growth of economy and rising of education levels. In exploring the reasons and ways out of the decline, especially in terms of the birth intentions, it mainly focuses on external factors: the cost of child rearing and education, children's care services, house affordability, women’s career plan, etc. Accordingly, measures have been adopted such as the reduction of personal income tax, the double reduction policy of education, the extension of maternity leave, establishment of maternity incentive fund, the provision of housing subsidies, the equalization of educational resources and so on. But it doesn’t seem to have much effect. Some scholars associate the influence of individualism and materialism with the fertility view of the younger generation, but regret that traditional view of fertility is not suitable for the contemporary society. Some even attribute the low birth rate to the Confucian tradition, believing that “the practical rationality of Confucian culture, the concept of family fertility and the close relationship between generations play a strong role in inhibiting fertility.”
Israel, by contrast, with a developed economy and a high level of education, has a much higher fertility rate. One of the important reasons is said to be its traditional culture or religiosity. Israel 's religious and political forces have an important impact on Israel 's fertility concept, and religious or Jewish family ethics have influenced the fertility concept of adult children through parents, and the relationship between individual and national destiny formed in unique geopolitics has profoundly affected Israel’s fertility concept. In such a tradition, whether to have offspring is no longer a purely personal matter.
By comparing the similarities of the two cultures from the views on family and fertility; family model and fertility concept; family / national isomorphism and fertility concept, I will explore the possibility of drawing inspiration from the Confucian tradition to change young people’s view of marriage and birth planning. If Israeli society can inherit and carry forward the close relationship between individual life and family and national destiny in the Torah tradition, connect individual fertility intention with family / national destiny to form a unique fertility concept, we can do so by exploring the consistency between patriotism and Confucian home-state isomorphism, between the concept of fertility in filial piety and the value of individual life, and the destiny of the nation.

Author

• Xiaowei Fu, Sichuan International Studies University