CBS report: 44% of Tel Aviv women ages 30-34 are single

New data shows marriage still Israeli social norm, mothers have more kids than Western counterparts; suburban Tel Aviv most populous district.

By RONEN SHNIDMAN
pregnant woman 311 (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [illustrative])
pregnant woman 311
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski [illustrative])
The Central Bureau of Statistics released a study of demographic changes in Israel between 1990 and 2009 to celebrate International Statistics Day on Wednesday.
According to the report, Israel's population is equivalent to approximately 0.1 percent of the global total and is equivalent to that of Switzerland. But what it lacks in size, Israel seems to make up for with its youthful energy. Twenty-eight percent of Israelis are below the age of 14 (26 percent in the Jewish sector and 38 percent in the Arab sector) and 12% of Israelis are over the age of 65. Israelis also have more children than their Western counterparts with the average Israeli mother having exactly three children as compared to 2.1 kids in the US, 2.0 in France, 1.7 in Canada and 1.4 in Italy.
RELATED:Nation’s population closes in on 7.65 million as 5770 endsCBS: Home construction to rise by 11%A minor gender imbalance exists in Israel, with 2.814 million adult males as compared to 2.890 million females. However the number of men exceeds that of woman up until the age of 30.
Marriage still appears to be a widely accepted norm, with only four percent of long-term couples unmarried and 92% of those between the ages of 40 and 44 having been married at least once. For single ladies though, Tel Aviv is the place to be, at least the CBS report seems to suggest.  According to the report, in 2008 44% of women between the ages of 30 and 34 living in Tel Aviv were single.
Of course some people prefer the single life. According to the statistics, 374,000 Israelis lived by themselves in 2009, double the number in 1990. Ninety percent of these were Jewish and 60 percent of them women, with only 45% of them age 65 or higher. The figures show that slightly more men than women live alone at younger ages but many more women live by themselved than men past the age of 50.
Israel's increasing population density has led to some interesting demographic trends in the Jewish State. Currently, Israel's population density is  329 inhabitants per kilometer up from 220 in 1990. Among the European countries only the Netherlands (398 inhabitants per kilometer) and Belgium (351) have a higher population density. But how packed in you feel certainly has to do with where in Israel you live. Tel Aviv is the most crowded area in Israel with 7,425 people per kilometer compared to the sparsely inhabited South that averages 76 per kilometer.
This increased crowding has lead to to wave of internal migration from major cities to more open areas. In 1990 the largest administrative area by population size in Israel (as defined by the Interior Ministry) was Tel Aviv District , followed by the Center and then the North. By 2009, the Center had a significantly higher population than Tel Aviv District (which is now second in size) and the North, suggesting a major trend towards suburbanization in the metro Tel Aviv area. The South in particular experience the most rapid growth in the last 20 years, doubling in size, with the strongest growth in the Jewish population occurring in the Ashkelon area and of the Muslim population in the Beersheba area.
Although, despite Israel's ongoing population growth, new olim are certainly adding less and less to crowding issues in the country as only 13 percent of Jewish Israeli population growth between 2006 and 2009 was due to external immigration as compared to 65 percent in the years 1990-1995 during the height of the Russian aliya.