This study examines the relationship between religiosity and marital fertility in a Muslim society around the onset of the transition using the 1973—74 Israeli Fertility Survey. In rural areas, where no decline was discernable, there was a negative relationship between religiosity and marital fertility, while in urban areas there was no relationship. The results of this study suggest that the negative relationship in rural areas is because of differences in breast-feeding. Following Quranic recommendations, the more religious seem to breast-feed longer. Demographic, social, and economic characteristics of the more and less religious do not account for the negative relationship. Demographic, social, and economic characteristics and the use of contraceptive methods, however, do explain, in part, the absence of a negative relationship in urban areas.
William Sander , "Catholicism and the Economics of Fertility ," Population Studies46 ( 1992): 477-89.
2.
E.g., Alicia Adsera, "Marital Fertility and Religion in Spain, 1985 and 1999," Population Studies 60 (2006): 205-21; William D. Mosher and G. Hendershot, "Religion and Fertility: A Replication," Demography 21 (1984): 185-91; Shoshana Neuman, "Is Fertility Indeed Related to Religiosity? A Note On: ‘Marital Fertility and Religion in Spain, 1985 and 1999,’ Population Studies 60 (2): 205-221 by Alicia Adsera," Population Studies 61 (2007): 219-24; Shoshana Neuman and Adrian Ziderman, "How Does Fertility Relate to Religiosity: Survey Evidence from Israel," Sociology and Social Research 70 (1986): 178-80; Sander, "Catholicism and the Economics of Fertility." Adsera does not report a positive correlation between religiosity and marital fertility in an earlier Spanish survey from 1985.
3.
Faisal Azaiza, "Contraceptive Utilization: Profile of the Muslim Arab Women in Rural Israel," Scandinavian Journal of Social Welfare 6 (1997): 317-24; Sajeda Amin, Ian Diamond, and Fiona Steele, "Contraception and Religiosity in Bangladesh," in The Continuing Demographic Transition, ed. G. W. Jones, R. M. Douglas, J. C. Caldwell, and R. M. D’Souza (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1997), 268-89; Zvi Eisenbach, "Trends and Variations in Moslem Fertility in Israel" [in Hebrew] (PhD diss., Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1978); and "Family Planning among the Muslim Population of Israel," in Studies in the Population of Israel, ed. Usiel O. Schmelz and Gad Nathan (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1986), 1-14 ; Nashid Kamal, Andrew Sloggetti, and John G. Cleland, "Area Variations in Use of Modern Contraception in Rural Bangladesh: A Multilevel Analysis," Journal of Biosocial Science 31 (1999): 327-41; Clarence Maloney, K. M. Ashraful Aziz, and Profulla C. Sarker, Beliefs and Fertility in Bangladesh (Dacca, Bangladesh: International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Control, 1981); Malika Mistry, "Role of Religion in Fertility and Family Planning among Muslims in India," Indian Journal of Secularism 3 (1999): 1-33.
4.
Calvin Goldscheider, Population, Modernization, and Social Structure (Boston : Little, Brown, 1971).
5.
Barbara Anderson, "Regional and Cultural Factors in the Decline of Marital Fertility in Europe," in The Decline of Fertility in Europe, ed. Ansley J. Coale and Susan Cotts Watkins (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), 300.
6.
Carla Makhlouf Obermeyer, "Islam, Women, and Politics: The Demography of Arab Countries," Population and Development Review18 (1992): 33-60; Zulie Sachedina, "Islam, Procreation and the Law," International Family Planning Perspectives16 (1990): 107-11.
7.
John Knodel , Rossarin Soottipong Gray, Porntip Sriwatcharin, and Sara Peracca, "Religion and Reproduction: Muslims in Buddhist Thailand," Population Studies53 (1999): 149-64; Sriya Iyer, Demography and Religion in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002).
8.
Rhoda Ann Kanaaneh, Birthing the Nation: Strategies of Palestinian Women in Israel ( Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 145.
9.
Iyer, Demography and Religion in India, 9.
10.
Jona Schellekens and Zvi Eisenbach, "The Predecline Rise in Israeli Moslem Fertility," Economic Development and Cultural Change50 (2002): 541-55.
11.
Kevin McQuillan , "When Does Religion Influence Fertility?" Population and Development Review30 ( 2004): 25-56.
12.
Sachedina, "Islam, Procreation and the Law."
13.
McQuillan, "When Does Religion Influence Fertility?" 30.
14.
Calvin Goldscheider , "Religious Values, Dependencies, and Fertility: Evidence and Implications from Israel," in Dynamics of Values in Fertility Change, ed. R. Leete ( Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999), 310-30.
15.
Dudley Kirk , "Factors Affecting Moslem Natality," in Family Planning and Population Programs: A Review of World Developments , eds. B. Berelson, R. K. Anderson, O. Harkavy, J. Maier, W. Parker Mauldin , and S. J. Segal ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 561-580 ; J.C. Caldwell, "Routes to Low Mortality in Poor Countries," Population and Development Review12 (1986 ): 171-220.
16.
S. PhilipMorgan, SharonStash, HerbertL. Smith, and Karen Oppenheim Mason, "Muslim and Non-Muslim Differences in Female Autonomy and Fertility: Evidence from Four Asian Countries," Population and Development Review28 ( 2002): 515-37.
17.
Obermeyer, "Islam, Women, and Politics," 46.
18.
Calvin Goldscheider and P.R. Uhlenberg, "Minority Group Status and Fertility ," American Journal of Sociology74 (1969): 361-72.
19.
Philippe Fargues , "Protracted National Conflict and Fertility Change among Palestinians and Israelis," Population and Development Review26 ( 2000): 441-82.
20.
Michael Hout and Andrew M. Greeley, "The Center Doesn’t Hold: Church Attendance in the United States, 1940-1984," American Sociological Review52 (1987): 325-45; Arland Thornton, William G. Axinn, and Daniel H. Hill, "Reciprocal Effects of Religiosity, Cohabitation, and Marriage," American Journal of Sociology98 (1992): 628-51.
21.
Ron Lesthaeghe and Johan Surkyn, "Cultural Dynamics and Economic Theories of Fertility Change," Population and Development Review 14 (1988): 1-45; Mark Chaves, "Secularization and Religious Revival: Evidence from U.S. Church Attendance Rates, 1972-1986," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 28 (1989): 464-77; Manfred Te Grotenhuis and Peer Scheepers, "Churches in Dutch: Causes of Religious Disaffiliation in the Netherlands, 1937-1995," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 40 (2001): 591-606; James R. Tilley, "Secularization and Aging in Britain: Does Family Formation Cause Greater Religiosity?" Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 42 (2003): 269-78; David Voas and Alasdair Crockett, "Religion in Britain: Neither Believing nor Belonging," Sociology 39 (2005): 11-28.
22.
Kamal, Sloggetti , and Cleland, " Area Variations in Use of Modern Contraception"
23.
Ansley J. Coale and T. James Trussell, "Model Fertility Schedules: Variations in the Age Structure of Childbearing in Human Populations ," Population Index40 ( 1974): 185-258.
24.
Hillary J. Page, "Patterns Underlying Fertility Schedules: A Decomposition by Both Age and Marriage Duration," Population Studies31 (1977): 85-106.
25.
Jan Van Bavel , "Does an Effect of Marriage Duration on Pre-Transition Fertility Signal Parity-Dependent Control? An Empirical Test in Nineteenth-Century Leuven, Belgium," Population Studies57 (2003): 55-62.
26.
Fecundability is the ability to become pregnant; secondary sterility refers to the termination of previously possessed reproductive ability. See Roland Pressat and Chris Wilson, The Dictionary of Demography (New York: Blackwell, 1985).
27.
Yoram Ben-Porath , "Economic Analysis of Fertility in Israel: Point and Counterpoint," Journal of Political Economy81 (1973): S202-33.
28.
Urban residence is defined as residence in one of the following settlements at the time of the survey: Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Ramleh, Lod, Nazareth, Shefar-A’m, Umm al-Fahm, and Taibeh.
29.
Henry Rosenfeld , "Changes, Barriers to Change, and Contradictions in the Arab Village Family," American Anthropologist70 (1968): 732-52.
30.
Shireen Jejeebhoy and Zeba A. Sathar, "Women’s Autonomy in India and Pakistan: The Influence of Religion and Region,"Population and Development Review27 (2001): 687-712.
31.
Paul D. Allison, "Discrete-Time Methods for the Analysis of Event Histories," Sociological Methodology13 (1982): 61-98.
32.
Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier and Christopher Zorn, "Duration Models for Repeated Events," Journal of Politics64 (2002): 1069-94.
33.
Adrian E. Raftery, Steven M. Lewis, and Akbar Aghajanian, "Demand or Ideation? Evidence from the Iranian Marital Fertility Decline," Demography 32 (1995): 159-82; John W. McDonald and Alessandro Rosina, "Mixture Modeling of Recurrent Event Times with Long-Term Survivors: Analysis of Hutterite Birth Intervals," Statistical Methods and Applications 10 (2001): 257-272; Rebecca Sear, Ruth Mace, and Ian A. McGregor, "The Effects of Kin on Female Fertility in Rural Gambia," Evolution and Human Behavior 24 (2003): 99-112; Fiona Steele, Constantinos Kallis, Harvey Goldstein, and Heather Joshi, "The Relationship between Childbearing and Transitions from Marriage and Cohabitation," Demography 42 (2005): 647-73; Jona Schellekens and Frans van Poppel, "Religious Differentials in Marital Fertility in the Hague (Netherlands) 1860-1909," Population Studies 60 (2006): 23-38.
34.
Nathaniel Beck , Jonathan N. Katz, and Richard Tucker, "Taking Time Seriously: Time-Series-Cross-Section Analysis with a Binary Dependent Variable," American Journal of Political Science42 (1998): 1260-88.
35.
Takeshi Amemiya , Advanced Econometrics ( Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 348-52; Kazuo Yamaguchi, "Alternative Approaches to Unobserved Heterogeneity in the Analysis of Repeatable Events,"Sociological Methodology16 (1986): 213-49.
36.
McDonald and Rosina, "Mixture Modeling," 265.
37.
Donald Hedeker , "MIXNO: A Computer Program for Mixed Effects Nominal Logistic Regression," Journal of Statistical Software4 (1999): 1-92.
38.
Ansley J. Coale and Roy Treadway, "A Summary of the Changing Distribution of Overall Fertility, Marital Fertility, and the Proportion Married in the Provinces of Europe," in The Decline of Fertility in Europe, ed. Ansley J. Coale and Susan Cotts Watkins (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), 31-181.
39.
The own-children method of fertility estimation is a reverse-survival technique for estimating age-specific birth rates for years previous to a census or household survey. See L.J. Cho , R.D. Retherford, and Minja Choe, Own-Children Method of Fertility Estimation (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986).
40.
Marital fertility in urban areas already started to decline in 1967. This decline may plausibly be linked to the recession that led to widespread unemployment among Israeli Arabs in 1966. See Yoram Ben-Porath, "Short-Term Fluctuations in Fertility and Economic Activity in Israel," Demography 10 (1973): 185-204. After the recession, marital fertility rose again to start its final decline in 1971. This decline coincides with a period when Arab workers started to replace Jewish workers of Asian-African origin in traditional labor-intensive industries, construction, and transport. The low-paying jobs in industry, building, and agriculture previously held by Israel’s Arabs now went to Palestinians from the Occupied Territories. See Aziz Haidar, On the Margins: The Arab Population in the Israeli Economy (London: Hurst, 1995), 119.
41.
The total marital fertility rate at age twenty in year t is the average number of children that would be born to a married woman over her lifetime if (1) she were to experience the age-specific marital fertility rates in year t through her lifetime, (2) she were to marry at age twenty, and (3) she were to survive until the end of her reproductive life. It is obtained by summing the single-year age-specific rates after age twenty.
42.
John Bongaarts and Robert G.Potter, Fertility, Biology, and Behavior: An Analysis of the Proximate Determinants (New York: Academic Press, 1983), 45.
43.
Eisenbach, "Trends and Variations," 149.
44.
John Bongaarts , "A Method for the Estimation of Fecundability ," Demography12 ( 1975): 645-60.
45.
Chris Wilson , "Natural Fertility in Pre-Industrial England, 1600-1799," Population Studies38 (1984): 225-40.
46.
Shireen Jejeebhoy , Women’s Education, Autonomy and Reproductive Behaviour: Experience from Developing Countries (Oxford , UK: Clarendon, 1995).
47.
M.M. Islam and H.T. Khan, "Pattern of Coital Frequency in Rural Bangladesh ," Journal of Family Welfare39 (1993): 38-43.
