A study by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics ahead of International Women’s Day 2019 revealed that Jewish and Arab women are marrying at older ages than they were 10 years ago, and that Israel still suffers from a substantial wage gap.
Utilizing data gathered in 2017, CBS found that 51.5 percent of Jewish women aged 25 to 29 were married, down from 55.1 percent in 2006.
In 2017, 74.4 percent of Arab women of the same age were married, down from 79.6 percent.
By the age of 45 to 49, 9.5 percent of Jewish women identified as single, up from 5.9 percent a decade before, whereas 11.9 percent of same-aged Arab women said they were single, compared to 10.5 percent 10 years earlier.
In 2017, the average woman was 27.6 years old at the birth of their first child, compared with 26.8 in 2006. Twice the number of children born to single Jewish mothers was recorded in 2017 than in 2006.
The statistics showed that many more girls graduated from high school than boys in 2017—70.9 percent of girls compared to 59.2 percent of boys. In the Arab education system, 72.4 percent of girls graduated, compared to just 51.6 percent of boys.
In the 2017-18 academic year, 59 percent of students in higher education were female, compared with 43.3 percent back in 1969-70.
Women overwhelmingly expressed satisfaction with their work (an impressive 90 percent), though only 56 percent were satisfied with their income, which suffered a 15.8 percent wage gap when compared with the wages of men on an hourly basis.
At the end of the day, however, Israelis expressed overall happiness, with approximately 89 percent of men and women saying they are satisfied with their lives.