This Pew Research study of religions in America is getting good exposure. Haaretz broke down some interesting stats here. Here are some things I took away:
1. Only 1.7% of America is Jewish (Comparable to Mormons)
2. < 0.3% is Jewish Orthodox. So there are at most ~900,000 (age 18+) of "us" in this great country. Pew's methodology states that they conducted random telephone interviews. I would guess that the "ultra-orthodox" a) have cell phones and not land lines b) are less inclined to answer surveys in general, and may be unable to do so because of language barriers.
3. 72% of Jews (18+) have no children. 82% of Conservative Jews have no children, the highest of any religious group (compare that to 46% of Jews making $100,000+, the highest for any religious group). Even if we consider that the 18-30 demographic is not as likely to have children, that still leaves 57.6% of Jews 30+ and 64% of Conservative Jews with no children. As a further piece of datum that I do not know what to do with, 81% of Jews have been in a committed relationship at some point in their life. How much overlap there is between the remaining 19% and the 18-30 age demographic is unclear.
Let's do a sad back-of-the-envelope calculation. Let's assume that 55% of Jews marry non-Jews and of the 45% of remaining Jews 58% of them have no children. Let's also guess that the avg # of children for those that do decide to have children is 2 (which is about right). In that case, every 100 Jewish adults produces 19 Jewish children! That is a total low ball figure, as ~50% of those that inter-marry still produce halachikally Jewish children, but there is a rather high chance that they will not affiliate as well.
19 for every hundred is not replacement, no where close.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
13 years ago
4 comments:
The question was regarding having children under the age of 18 *living in their house* - the national rate is 65%, 50% for Mormons.
The 2000 NJPS survey, based on a birth rate of 1.29 children/woman and a 49% intermarriage rate for secular Jewish women, projected a production of 41 second-generation Jews; the numbers are higher for Conservative Jews and greater than 100 for Orthodox Jews.
I saw the NJPS numbers too. I did not see a cumulative number there, though. It doesn't seem to me that the 1.29 children/women jives with the Pew numbers. I think the Pew numbers come out to something like 0.73 children per couple. Check my math. (58,0);(9,1);(11,2);(4,3);(4,5)
Your math is ok, but your numbers are wrong. 72% is the number of households that have no children below the age of 18 in them, including those who have adult children (who would make up the bulk of the 51% above the age of 50).
Good point. I did use the 58% as my weight, not the 72%, but let's use 42% as that assumes that all those >65 and <30 have no children (an minimum, to be sure). I think comes to 0.9 children/couple.
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