Israel Sees Historic Population Slowdown

Israel’s population growth has fallen below 1% for the first time since the state’s founding, marking a structural shift rather than a short-term fluctuation. An analysis released Wednesday by the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel estimates growth of just 0.9% in 2025, compared with a historical floor of roughly 1.5% per year since 1950, aside from two brief dips. The slowdown reflects the convergence of three forces: rising mortality, declining fertility and a widening gap between emigration and immigration.

“Israel’s peak period of natural population increase is behind us,” said Prof. Alex Weinreb, editor of the study. “Natural growth will continue to decline.” The assessment challenges a long-held assumption that Israel’s demography is structurally insulated from the aging and fertility declines seen across other developed economies.

“Natural Increase” Under Pressure

Birth totals have remained stable at about 180,000 annually over the past decade, but the study argues that this masks falling fertility across nearly all population groups. Among Muslim, Druze and Christian women, fertility has dropped by roughly 30% in recent years. Researchers now see early indications of a similar trend among Jewish women.

Projections based on age-specific fertility patterns suggest that within about 10 years, fertility among secular and traditional Jewish women will decline from a current range of 1.9–2.2 children per woman to around 1.7. Among religious Jewish women, fertility is projected to fall from 3.74 to about 2.3, and among ultra-Orthodox women from 6.48 to roughly 4.3. The researchers also note that about 15% of children born into ultra-Orthodox families later leave the community, moderating long-term population effects.

At the same time, deaths are rising as large Jewish and Arab cohorts enter their 70s and 80s, age bands with sharply higher mortality. This demographic aging is expected to persist, further narrowing the gap between births and deaths.

Migration Balance as Constraint

For most of Israel’s history, natural increase drove population growth. As that engine weakens, sustaining annual growth of at least 1% would require sustained net immigration. Recent data point in the opposite direction. In 2025, Israel recorded a negative migration balance of about 37,000 people, with departures exceeding arrivals.

Figures from the first nine months of 2025 indicate immigration will be the lowest since 2013, excluding 2020, the coronavirus year. Many of those leaving were not Israeli-born, including immigrants who arrived in 2022 after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Still, the number of native-born Israelis emigrating is rising, from fewer than 20,000 in 2022 to more than 30,000 in 2025.