In honor of Tuesday’s Family Day, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics publishes data on households in the Jewish State recorded in 2017.
There were 2.06 million families in Israel in 2017, of which 1.63 million were Jewish (79%) and about 367,000 were Arab (18%).
The average number of persons per family is 3.73, with living in a nuclear family being the most common (approximately 89% of the Jews and 96% of the Arabs).
The common name in Israel is Cohen, followed by the names Levi, Mizrahi, Peretz, Biton, Dahan, Avraham, Agbaria and Friedmann. One in 50 Israeli Jews is called Cohen and 1 out of 85 is called Levi.
The most common name among the Muslims is Agbaria (common among Jews as well); among the Christians – Khuri; and the Druze – Halabi (after the city of Alepo in Syria).
According to the CBS, about half the families in Israel are comprised of two parents and at least one child up to age 17, while the percentage of children up to this age living with two parents is high in Israel (92%), compared to most of the OECD countries.
The percentage of couples without children was higher in families in which the head of the household was Jewish (approximately 28%) than in households in which the head of the household was Arab (approximately 11%).
About 11% of all families with children up to age 17 are single-parent families (about 122,000), similar to the percentage a decade ago. A woman heads about 87% of single-parent families.
About 18% of all mothers with children up to age 17 are single, compared to 14% a decade ago.
Of the large cities with 100,000 or more residents, the highest percentage of couples with children up to age 17 is in Beit Shemesh, about 72%, compared to the national average of 48%.
The highest percentage of single-parent families with children up to age 17 is in Be’er Sheva – approximately 8% (compared with the national average of 6%)
The highest percentage of couples without children is in Tel Aviv-Yafo – about 41% (the national average is 25%).
In 2017, households in Israel spent $4,500 on goods and services. Households with children spent on average 1.4 times of what households without children did ($5,357 compared to $3,804, respectively).
In terms of religious lifestyle, 46.5% of the families in Israel have a secular lifestyle, compared with about 40% who define their lifestyle as traditional to very religious.
In Arab society, however, only about 11% of the families are secular, while about 86% define their way of life as traditional (57.1%) or very religious / religious (29.2%).