About 95% of Israeli couples are legally married, and only 88,000 couples (out of 1.96 million) are living together out-of-wedlock, the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) reported this week, in preparation for International Day of Families (May 15). Israel has one of the lowest rate of unmarried couples among the developed countries. In Italy, 7% of the couples are living out-of-wedlock, while in Norway a whopping 27% refuse to marry.
The average Israeli family continues to number 3.7 members, maintaining a decade-long average. About half the families are made up of two parents and one child under the age of 17.
Childless couples are more common in Jewish households (27%) than in Arab households (10%). About 1.6% of all the Israeli families (120,000) are single-parent with children under age 17. About 17% of single mothers with children under age 17 are unmarried — up from 12% a decade ago.
In 2014 there were 2.36 million households in Israel, of which 1.87 million had members with official employment (79.1%). The remainders include pensioners, the handicapped and people who fail to report their income.
Of cities with 100,000 residents or more, the highest rate of official employment was in Rishon L’tzion and Tel Aviv — 81.9% and 81.8% respectively. The large city with the lowest rate of employment in 2014 was Haifa — 71.6%.
Among single parent families, 83.2% had employed members, with the rate of employment rising concurrently with the age of the child, which is typical of female employment.
In 2014, the average gross annual income per family was NIS 220,000, or roughly $56,532. The average income of a household with children was 1.3 times bigger than a household without children.
Among households with three children or more, percentage of income from employment was the lowest — 85.9%, while income from pensions and subsidies was the highest — 9.4% (compared with 88.3% and 7.6% respectively in households with two or fewer children).
Among the total number of Israeli households, expenses came to 79.4% of net income, but in households with three or more children expenses constituted 90.3% of net income.
On average, an Israeli household spent NIS 180,636 or roughly $46,407 annually on products and services, but households with children spent on average 1.4 times more than households without children.