WarSclerotic

The population density of the Gaza Strip has been disputed, but in comparison with other cities, Gaza City, with a population of around 750,000, is undoubtedly a densely populated urban area.

This goes some way to explaining the high numbers of casualties in the current conflict. Some 63 Israelis and about 1460 Palestinians have died since the current conflict started a month ago, with children accounting for at least 245 of the deaths. But why so many children? It turns out that there are unusual features about the population structure in Gaza that make it an enigma in the modern world.

First, the Gaza Strip’s population of roughly 1.8 million has an unusually large proportion of children. Figures for 2013 from Index Mundi, the internet source of country data, show that that 43.5 per cent of the population is aged 14 or under, compared with 32 per cent in Egypt and 27 per cent in Israel.

The median age in Gaza is 18, compared with a world average of 28. In most European countries it’s about 40, and it is 30 in Israel. Only in a dozen or so African countries is the median age lower, reaching 15 in Uganda.

Jobs for the boys

So why are there so many children in Gaza? Demographers say it’s a combination of unusual factors. One is that an unusually low proportion of Palestinian women hold jobs. “It’s the place in the world where the least women work outside the home,” says Jon Pedersen of the Fafo Institute, a centre for demographic and social research in Oslo, Norway. Latest figures from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics show that 14.7 per cent of women are in the labour market.

“In most other countries, it’s much higher than that, between 70 and 80 per cent in Scandinavia, for example,” says Pedersen, who co-authored acomprehensive study a decade ago on the demography of Gaza. Even in other Middle Eastern countries with similar cultures to Gaza, the proportions working outside the home are significantly higher. In Jordan, for example, 16 per cent of women have jobs.

The data from Index Mundi show that the fertility rate in Gaza, 4.4 children per woman, is among the highest in the world. That has steadily fallen from a peak of 8.3 children per woman in 1991. This compares with a rate of 3 in Israel, although the overall rate there is elevated by higher rates of around 6 among the strictly orthodox Haredi Jews. In most European countries, it’s about 2.

The second factor contributing to the high fertility rate is the fact that while women are housebound, their husbands earn more money as their families expand. “It’s employers that are willing to pay it,” says Pedersen. “Traditionally, men will get extra wages if they have extra children.”

No education link

The upshot, says Pedersen, is that most families in Gaza cope on a single salary, providing more latitude for families to grow than in regions like Scandinavia, where both parents have to work to make ends meet.

One puzzle, however, is why so many Gazan women – especially those that are well-educated – choose to have large families rather than pursue careers. In most countries, the birth rate usually falls hand in hand with better education and more career opportunities for women, but the pattern in Gaza fails to follow this pattern.

A study published in 2006 found that despite high educational achievement among Gazan women – all have at least nine years of schooling – and relatively low and constant infant mortality rates at around 25 per 1000 births, few chose to pursue independent careers. During the Intifada uprising that began in 1987, the research found, there was a surge in marriage rates, with many educated women prepared to marry men who were less well-educated.

“Palestinian women are not having lots of children because they don’t know about contraception, or can’t access contraception,” says Sara Randall, an anthropologist at University College London, who co-authored the 2006 investigation. “So one has to conclude that they actually want lots of children.”

Call to arms

Randall’s study, involving interviews with 16,204 Gazan women and 4900 Jordanian women for comparison, concluded that the Intifada was a key driving factor for the surge in marriage and fertility. In the Intifada years of 1989 and 1990, for example, women were 1.4 times more likely to marry than in 1980. The rate during the Intifada was even higher, at twice that in 1980, for more educated women.

“Whether the phenomenally high fertility levels in Gaza are also a more long-term response to political oppression and a perceived need to increase the numbers of Palestinians cannot be inferred from the data available, but it certainly seems to be a plausible hypothesis,” concludes Randall’s study. “In a situation where disempowerment, underemployment and marginalisation have left few opportunities for expression of identity, reproduction is one of the few liberties which remains, and also contributes to the larger goal of increasing the Palestinian people,” it says.

Pedersen says that a sense of duty to expand the population is a factor that can’t be dismissed. “There have been statements from Hamas urging women to have more children to create a larger army,” he says.