By RON FRIEDMANcell phones 88 224(photo credit: Courtesy)
Personal computers are found in 71.1 percent of Israeli households and 90.8% of those homes have an Internet connection. Some 61.8% of households own at least one car and 18.8% have two or more. And the average Israeli has 2.1 mobile phones.Those were some of the findings the Central Bureau of Statistics reported on Tuesday, when it released an initial report from the 2008 national population census, which was concluded in June 2009.It was the first census to employ an integrated method that combines data from administrative sources and sample data from field surveys. The census provides vast amounts of information from all fields of Israeli life. The Jerusalem Post offers highlights of the findings:• Israel is home to 7,409,000 people. The population is 75.6% Jewish, 16.9% Muslim, 2% Christian, 1.7% Druse and 3.8% are defined as belonging to other religions.The median age is 28-29 for males and 30 for females. The largest age group is those 0-4 years of age, making up roughly 10% of the population. The smallest age group is those 85 and above, who make up 1% of the males and 1.5% of the females.The median age of marriage for men is 25, and for women its 22.Nearly a third of Israeli households have one child, 31.4% have two children, 19.7% have three children and 16.1% have four or more children.Muslim women have the highest average number of children, with three children per woman, followed by Druse women with 2.7, Christian women with 2.2, Jewish women with 2.1 and others with 1.4.Of the Jews born in Israel – 71.3% of the Jewish population – 37.4% were born to parents who themselves were born in Israel, 29.8% from parents born in Europe, 15.8% from parents born in Africa, 12.5% from parents born in Asia and 4.4% from parents born in the Americas and Oceania.At the time of the census, 10.3% of the population had fewer than eight years of formal schooling, 47.4% had between 9 and 12 years of school, 21% had between 13 and 15 years and 20.8% had over 16.
Among males, 6.8% above the age of 15 went to yeshiva.According to the census, 65.4% of males and 54.8% of females participate in the civilian labor force; 86.2% of the working public are employees and 12.7% own their own businesses.The area of the economy that employs the most workers (16.7%) is the real estate, rental services and business services sector. Second is retail and wholesale, automotive repair and consumer goods sector, which employs 14.2% of the labor force. Next is heavy industry (mining and factories) (12.5%), education (10.2%), health and welfare (9.4%), transportation, storage and communication (7.4%) and community and social services (5.4%).For women, the largest employment sector is education, which employs 16.5% of them.The average work week for Israelis in 2008 was 40.5 hours – 45.2 hours for men and 35.5 hours for women.Fifty-two percent of workers aged 15 and above worked outside of their town of residence. To get to work, 51.9% drove their car, 17.8% used public buses, 11% walked, 9.1% used transportation provided by the workplace and 4.9% rode to work as a passenger in someone else’s vehicle. Fewer than 5% used other means of transportation such as bicycles, motorcycles, trains and taxis.Homeowners account for 65.8% of the population, 26.4% rent and 7.8% have other arrangements.Three-fourths of the population lives in homes with more than one roomper person. The average housing density in Israel is 0.9 people perroom.Among Israelis aged 5-65, 4.6% are unable to walk or climb up stairs,2.1% are incapable of dressing or washing themselves, 2.2% have hearingdifficulties and 0.3% have problems with their eyesight.Of the six cities with more than 200,000 residents, Jerusalem has theyoungest population. In 2008, 44% of the city’s population was under 19years of age.The city with the highest percentage of university graduates was Tel Aviv-Jaffa with 37%.
