Islam, Religiosity, and Marital Fertility among Israeli Palestinians

Jona Schellekens, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
A'as Atrash, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Whereas, a significant and positive relationship between religiosity and contraceptive behavior has been documented in several Muslim populations, there are no reports of a positive relationship between religiosity and measures of fertility. Using Israeli survey data our first aim is to show that after controlling for socio-economic characteristics religiosity has a positive effect. Usually religiosity is measured at the time of data collection. It has been argued, however, that instead of religiosity influencing fertility, family formation causes greater religiosity. Hence, our second aim is to include a time-varying measure of religiosity in the analysis, enabling us to measure religiosity in the year before the outcome. After replacing religiosity as measured at the time of the survey with a time-varying measure of religiosity in a repeated events history analysis, the effect of religiosity increases, suggesting a causal relationship between religiosity and fertility.