By YAIR ASSAF-SHAPIRAThe Arab population in Jerusalem and in the PA’s Jerusalem District(photo credit: JERUSALEM INSTITUTE FOR POLICY RESEARCH)
According to data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, there were approximately 341,500 Arabs residing in Jerusalem at the end of 2017. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), there were 133,900 residents living in the Jerusalem District of the Palestinian Authority in 2017 – an area that extends from Katanna (near Har Adar) in the West to the Dead Sea in the East. This number does not include those living in the city of Jerusalem, or residents in Israeli localities.We attempted to examine these two groups, and Arabs in Israel as a whole, by looking at the age-structure pyramid which describes the population according to the percentage each age group represents. This enables the study of past, present, and future trends.The age of the Arab population in Jerusalem is relatively young, and is characterized by two main features. First, there has been a very small increase from year to year in the number of children in the four youngest age groups (ages 0-19). In the youngest age group (ages 0-4) the number of children is actually lower than the number of those in the age group above it. This is not a common situation, especially following 15 years in which each age group was significantly larger than the group above it.The second feature is a large difference between cohorts among the 15-29 age group, especially in the 20-29 age group. The years during which these people were born – the late 1980s and early 1990s – were the years of the First Intifada, which were characterized by an increase in the number of children born.To a great extent, the age structure of the Arab population throughout Israel is reminiscent of that of the Arab population in Jerusalem, and the two features mentioned above are also evident among the latter. Among the population of the PA Jerusalem District, there was substantial growth in the number of people in the 20-29 age group who were born during the First Intifada, while in recent years there has been a very moderate decrease in the numbers of children born. It may be posited that one of the reasons for a similar trend about 25 years ago, and a different trend in recent years, is the erection of the security fence, which separates the city of Jerusalem from the Jerusalem District of the PA.Translated by Gilah Kahn-Hoffmann.
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