1.10.21 | Merav Arlosoroff | TheMarker

Israel is the only nation dealing with two fronts – increase in senior population, as well as an even bigger increase in child population.

Says the demographer Elijahu Ben Moshe – former vice-CEO of Israel’s national bureau of statistics – in a special interview for TheMarker.

The “population dividend” is an economic phenomena where a country benefits from an increase in the ratio of the working population to non-working population. This happens due to the country reaching population equlibrium and stops growing exponentialy.

Ben Moshe says that an increase of 1% in this ratio contributes 2% to a county’s economic growth.

The problem is that since 1995 birth rates in Israel has only increased. Average children per woman in Israel is 3.1, which threatens to turn the population dividend into a population “fine”.

All developed nations are dealing with an increase in number of old people, and there isn’t anything to do about that except maybe increasing retirement age. But only Israel is dealing with two fronts – increase in old people as well as an even larger increase in number of children – but there is a solution here: having less children.

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