Dissertation Research: Migration, Fertility Transition and Change in the Life Course among Ethiopian Jewish Women in Israel

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The 1991 airlift of 15,000 Ethiopian Jews to Tel Aviv presents a remarkable opportunity to study the impact of social change on women's reproductive careers. In Ethiopia Jewish women married young, bore children early, and had high fertility, trends opposite of Israeli Jewish women. This project has two major goals. The first is to quantify the effect of changes in economy, education, and opportunity structure on fertility decisions. And the second is to provide a qualitative ethnographic context for understanding those decisions based on an analysis of women's life histories. A restructuring of the life course, as reflected in marriage and childbearing patters, pursuit of education, and employment experience, is proposed to account for differences in fertility regimes between older women who began their child bearing careers in Ethiopia and younger women who have begun their child bearing careers in Israel. The data collected in this study will be generated from a series of directed and open-ended interviews that will provide a complete life history of immigrations, residence, education, employment, and fertility. The details of the immigration history of the Ethiopian Jewish population, including an abrupt rather than a gradual social, economic, and technical change, provide a unique opportunity to test hypotheses regarding the factors that influence the demographic transition. Thus, this study will provide critical linkages between social transformation, cultural values, and individual behaviors pertaining to reproduction and fertility.