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Brooklyn Orthodox Neighborhood Has Highest Birth Rate in New York City

A heavily haredi Orthodox neighborhood in Brooklyn boasts New York City’s highest birth rate.

Boro Park, which is known for its sizable Orthodox Jewish population, has 27.9 births per 1,000 residents, making it “easily the city’s baby capital,” according to the New York Post.

Citing 2013 data, the Post reported that the city’s overall birth rate is at its lowest level since 1936 and has declined steadily in the past 10 years.

Half the new births in the city are to foreign-born women, with Asians boasting the highest rate among the city’s immigrants. Forty percent of births were out of wedlock, and nearly 60 percent were to women receiving Medicaid or other government-subsidized health insurance. African-Americans had the lowest birth rate citywide.

In Boro Park, which has sizable Asian and Latino populations in addition to haredi Orthodox, 40.4 percent of residents are foreign-born, according to City-Data.com.

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