Demography of the Jewish Family: Continuities and Discontinuities

This chapter presents a broad overview of major changes in the Jewish family over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as part of broader processes of demographic and cultural modernization and integration of Jews in European and other societies. Jews often anticipated socio-demographic change in comparison to the non-Jewish surrounding majority, but the actual pace of change reflected each country’s very different level of development and modernization. Along with the general socioeconomic context of Jewish population change and international migration, attention is given to the peculiar Jewish normative framework of family trends. The chapter discusses the pace of Jewish population growth as determined by mutations in the death rate and the birth rate, and focuses on family formation patterns: frequency of marriage, age at marriage, choice of partner, and intermarriage. The conclusions are interpreted within a broader model of demographic transition among Jewish and other minorities.