American Jews were found, in a research study reported here today, to share with American Christians a pattern of maximum fertility in common faith marriages and lower fertility in mixed marriages.
The findings were reported to a session of the American Association for the Advancement of Science convention by Prof. Jack C. Bresler of Brown University. Prof. Bresler studied 1,000 Brown University and Pembroke College alumni. He traced the origins and religions of their parents and grandparents.
He also found that marriages of men and women of the same faith but with different national origins, even if generations removed, also produce fewer children. He reported that Catholic-Catholic marriages produce the greatest number of children. Next come Protestant-Protestant marriages and then Protestant-Catholic marriages. Last in fertility are marriages in which the mates are of the same faith but in which one partner was the child of parents of different faiths.
In reporting that Jewish marriages followed the same general trends. Dr. Bresler said he had studied fewer Jewish subjects and was therefore less certain of the findings for the Jewish group. He also said that his investigation found lower fertility whenever the marriage crossed ethnic groups.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
