An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man walks with his children on a street in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighbourhood September 24, 2015. Israel's birth rate, the highest in the developed world and once seen as a survival tactic in a hostile region, could be its undoing unless measures are taken to reverse the trend. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Israel's birth rate, the highest in the developed world and once seen as a survival tactic in a hostile region, could be its undoing unless measures are taken to reverse the trend.
The average Israeli woman has three babies in her lifetime, nearly double the fertility rate for the rest of the industrialised countries in the OECD. That, accompanied by heavy Jewish immigration from the former Soviet Union, has seen Israel's population double in the last 25 years.
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