Almost one in five children in Israel registered with social services

Central Bureau of Statistics released ahead of Universal Children’s Day on Wednesday.

By DANIELLE ZIRI
Lod child playing 370 (photo credit: Ouria Tadmor)
Lod child playing 370
(photo credit: Ouria Tadmor)
Some 17% – 449,000 – of children were registered with social services in 2012, according to data the Central Bureau of Statistics released ahead of Universal Children’s Day on Wednesday.
Children constituted about a third of the population registered with social services. About 150 out of 1,000 Jewish children were registered with the services compared to 220 out of 1,000 in the Arab population.
Almost 40% of the registered children are defined as needy. They include children with education and behavior problems; relationship problems with their parents; dysfunctional parents; and parents with marital problems. Some of the children are also orphans or come from a bereaved family.
Moreover, about 17% of the children considered needy have medical issues including physical and mental disabilities, and 16% live in poverty.
At the end of the year 2012, there were 2,626 million Israelis aged 0 to 17, some 33% of the population.
Among them, 70% are Jewish and 27% are Arabs – including Muslims, Druse and Christians. The remaining 3% include non-Arab Christians and others.
Children make up about 40% of the population in Jerusalem and 20% in Tel Aviv and Haifa.
In 2012, some 171,000 babies were born in Israel to 125,400 Jewish women and 36,000 Muslim women.
In municipalities with a population of more than 100,000 residents, the average household had 2.4 children. The highest average – 3.5 per family – was in Bnei Brak.
About 8% of Jewish children live in singleparent families, compared to 6% in the Arab sector and 13% of children of immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
Some 10.2% of all children – about 251,000 – live in households where no one was employed in 2012.
During the 2012-2013 school year, 1,365 youngsters aged 12 to 17 were enrolled in undergraduate studies at institutions of higher education, a 41.3% increase from the previous academic year.
Israeli households spent an average of NIS 14,272 on goods and services in 2012. Households with children spent on average of 1.3 times more on goods and services than households without children.
Some 76.1% of households with children own at least one car, compared to 57.1% of those without children.
In 2012, as in the year before, the most common names for Jewish newborns were Noa, Shira and Tamar for girls and Noam, Ori and Itay for boys.
The name Adele has made its way to the list of 10 most-common girls’ names, with more than 850 girls named Adele born in 2012.