Population nears 8.6 million ahead of Rosh Hashana

Last year, Jewish birth rate was 3.13, while Arab rate was 3.32, says CBS

Ahead of the Jewish New Year, the Central Bureau of Statistics released a report on Tuesday estimating the nation’s population at 8.585 million.

In 2015, 178,723 children were born – 1.3% more than the previous year. Seventy-four percent were born to Jewish mothers while 23% were born to Arab mothers.

The average age of a mother having her first child rose from 25.1 years in 1994 to 27.6 years in 2015. Furthermore, in 2015 the average woman in Israel had 3.09 children, compared to 3.08 children in 2014 and 3.8 in the first half of the 1970s.

In breaking these figures down by sector, the findings indicated that Jewish women had an average of 3.13 children in 2015, compared to 3.28 children in the first half of the 1970s, while Muslim women had 3.32 children on average in 2015, compared to 8.47 children during the earlier period.

According to the annual CBS report, in 2015, 74.8% of the population were Jews – 6.419 million people – and 20.8% were Arabs, or 1.786 million people.

The additional 4.4%, approximately 380,000 people, were non-Arab Christians or people of other religions, as well as those with no religious affiliation categorized as “other.”

The overall population grew by 2%, or 172,000 people, in 2015. The Jewish population grew by 1.9%, the Arab population by 2.2%, and “other” increased by 3.8%.

The population is young when compared with other Western countries. In 2015, 28.3% of the population was under the age of 14, while 11.1% was 65 or older.

Despite this, the average continues to rise. In 2015 the median age stood at 29.8, compared to 27.7 in 2000. The report further indicated that the median age for men in 2015 was 28.7 years while the median age for women was 30.9.

There are 983 men for every 1,000 women, up from 974 men for every 1,000 women in 1995.

Jewish men and women are marrying at a later age. In 2014, 62.7% of men and 45.8% of women aged 25-29 were single, compared to 2000, when 54% of men and 33.3% of women in that age group were unmarried.

In contrast, among the Muslim population in 2012, 47.1% of men and 19.4% of women aged 25-29 were single, compared to 2000 when 35.7% of men and 23.2% of women were unattached.

In 2014, 50,797 couples were married, of which 73% were Jewish couples and 23% were Muslim couples – among the highest marriage rates in the OECD. In contrast, 14,430 couples divorced during that year: 79% were Jewish couples and 15% were Muslim.

In 2015, 27,908 people made aliya, an increase of 16% from 2014, a rate of 3.3 olim for every 1,000 residents. The largest group of new olim – 6,886 – were from Ukraine, while 6,632 were from Russia, 6,628 from France and 2,451 from the United States.

The average age of a new immigrant in 2015 was 32.9 years. As in previous years, there were more women making aliya – 927 men for every 1,000 women.

The report also noted that at the end of 2015, approximately three-quarters of the Jews in Israel were Sabras – born in the country – and more than half were at least second-generation natives.

These figures indicate a drastic increase since the foundation of the state in 1948, when there were 806,000 Israelis, of whom 35% were native-born.

Some 34.1% of Israelis are of European-American origin, while 13.5% trace their families to Africa and 10.1% to Asia.

Some 40% of the population, and roughly half of the Jewish population, lives in the central region, while nearly 60% of the Arab population lives in the North.

In 2015, the population in the Jerusalem District grew by some 2.3%, to comprise 12.5% of the total population. However the highest growth rate was recorded in Judea and Samaria, 4.1%. The Tel Aviv metropolitan area population grew by only 1.4%, to make up 16.2% of the total population. •