Vital Statistics: Latest Population Statistics for Israel

At the end of 2021, Israel’s population stood at 9,450,000.  This is a more than 10-fold increase compared to when Israel was founded in 1948.  

Diversity & Growth
Immigration & Naturalization
A Young Population
Distribution
Birth, Marriage & Divorce

Diversity & Growth

The population increased by 1.7% in 2021. The Jewish population is 6,998,000 (73.9%) and 1,995,000 (21.1%) are Arabs. Those identified as “others” (non-Arab Christians, Baha’i, Samaritans, Karaite Jews, Seventh-day Adventists, Messianic Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who identify themselves as Jewish but do not satisfy the Orthodox Jewish definition of “Jewish” the government uses for civil procedures) make up 5% of the population (472,000 people).

In 2020, the population by religion was roughly 18% Muslim (2019 - 1,636,000), 2% (180,000) Christian and 2% Druze.

When the state was established, there were only 806,000 residents and the total population reached its first and second millions in 1949 and 1958 respectively. Judging by current population trend data, experts predict that the population of Israel will reach 10 million by 2024 or sooner.

In addition to these numbers, there are approximately 170,000 people living in Israel who are neither citizens nor permanent residents. 

Out of the 15.2 million Jewish people in the world, 46% reside in Israel.  

The average earnings per household are NIS 20,027 gross (approximately $5,800).

The number of deaths in 2021 – 51,000 – was higher than previous years, and even higher than 2020, when 47,788 Israelis died amid the COVID-19 outbreak. In 2021, more than 4,800 Israelis succumbed to COVID-19.

Israel is the 100^th most populous country in the world, not including the over 250,000 illegal foreign workers and African migrants residing in Israel.

Of Israeli Jews over age 20 in 2020, 43% self-identify as secular, 22% as traditional but not very religious, 13% as traditional-religious, 11% as religious and 10% as ultra-Orthodox.

According to a poll by the NGO Hiddush published in September 2019, 58% of Jewish citizens do not affiliate with any religious stream, 18% are “Zionist Orthodox,” 12% “ultra-Orthodox” (including 2% “Zionist ultra-Orthodox”), 7% “Reform,” and 6% “Conservative.”

According to 2019 figures, more than three-quarters (77.5%) of Christians are Arabs, representing 7.2% of all Israeli-Arab citizens. The majority of non-Arab Christians living in Israel are citizens who immigrated to Israel since 1990, together with Jewish family members under the Law of Return.

Some 70.6% of Arab-Christians live in northern Israel today, while 13.3% reside in the coastal city of Haifa and 9.5% live in Jerusalem. The nation’s most populous Christian cities are Nazareth (21,900 inhabitants), Haifa (16,100), Jerusalem (12,700) and the Galilee city of Shfaram (10,300).

The average fertility rate among Christians in 2018 was 2.06 children per woman, compared to 3.2 for Muslim women, 3.17 for Jewish women and 2.16 for Druze women.

In 2021, the average monthly salary was about $11,773.

Immigration & Naturalization

Israel welcomed approximately 25,000 new immigrants during 2021, an incease of 29% from 2020. Most immigrants arrived in Israel from Russia (30%), France (15%), the United States (14%), and Ukraine (12%).

Since Israel’s founding, 3.3 million people have immigrated to the country, 45% of them arriving since 1990.

“Most of the immigrants coming to Israel from Russia and Ukraine in recent years do not qualify as Jewish under religious law, even if they are eligible for citizenship,” Judy Maltz noted, “To qualify for citizenship under the Law of Return, an individual must have at least one Jewish grandparent, a Jewish spouse or have undergone a conversion in a recognized Jewish community (it does not have to be an Orthodox conversion). To qualify as a Jew under religious law, an individual must have been born to a Jewish mother or have undergone an Orthodox conversion by rabbis recognized by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate.”

Rising anti-Semitism in France likely accounts for the increase in immigrants from that country. Maltz noted that many French Jews who moved to Israel returned to France because of difficulty integrating into Israeli society due to the inability to master Hebrew and find jobs matching their skills.

In 2020, 78% of the total Jewish population were “Sabras” - born in Israel - compared with just a 35% native-born population at Israel’s independence in 1948. Over half of the Jewish population are Israeli-born to at least one parent who was also Israeli-born.2Those of European and American ancestry ma030ke up about 2.2 million (36%) of the Jewish population in Israel while Africans fill out another 14.5% and Asians are 11.2%.

A study performed by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that one in four Jewish individuals currently live in a country other than the one they were born in. In contrast, one in twenty Christians and one in twenty-five Muslims live in a country other than that of their birth. This makes Jewish individuals the world’s top migrants.

A Young Population

Israel’s population is considered young relative to the populations of other Western countries.

As of 2021, 28% of the population was aged 0-14 while only 12% were older than 65 years of age. The OECD average is 18.5% (0-14) and 15% (65+). Israel’s average age, however, is getting older. In 2011, the average age was 29.5 years as opposed to 27.6 in the year 2000. Average age worldwide for males is 28.4 and for women is 30.6 years old.

Life expectancy for Israelis is 83 years, 81 years for men, and 84.7 years for women. In 2017, life expectancy for Arab women was 79.5 years and 77.4 for men.

The World Health Organization issued a report in May 2016 that concluded humans were on average living 5 years longer than they were in 2000. Israel was ranked as the country with the 8^th highest life expectancy in the world, better than the United States, Canada, France, Russia, and other highly developed nations. Life expectancy in 2020 was 83.5 years for all Israelis, 84.9 for women and 82 for men.

Distribution

Israel’s population density in 2017 was reported as 373.2 people per km². By comparison, Slovenia (who’s territory is roughly the same size as Israel’s) has a population density of 102 people per km²; Belgium (slightly larger than Israel) has a density of 364 people per km².

Tel Aviv is Israel’s densest region with 7,522 people per km²; Jerusalem has a density of 1,484 people per km² and Bnei Brak is Israel’s densest city with 22,145 people per km².

The most popular cities for new immigrants to settle down in during 2014 were Tel Aviv and Netanya, with 3,275, and 3,102 new immigrants settling there, respectively.

Just under half of the Jewish population lives in the center of the country, either Jerusalem or Tel Aviv metropolitan areas. 60% of the Arab population lives in the north.

Jerusalem is Israel’s largest city, with a population of 936,047, followed by Tel Aviv-Jaffa (461,352), Haifa (285,542), Rishon Le-Zion (254,238) and Petah Tikva (248,005). Today there are 14 cities in Israel with a population of over 100,000.

Israel’s male to female population ratio is 982:1,000.

Israel has 15 cities that are home to over 100,000 people.

Birth, Marriage & Divorce

The average age for an Israeli woman to be married in 2016 was 26.1 years old, and the average age for an Israeli woman to have her first child was 28.3. Teen births are uncommon in Israel, with births to women aged 19 and under accounting for 0.5% of national births during 2016.

The fertility of Israeli Jewish women in 2018 exceeded that of Arab women for the first time. The rate among Jewish women living in Israel and in Israeli settlement in the West Bank was 3.05 compared to 3.04 for Israeli Arab women. The overall fertility rate in Israel in 2020 was 3.01 children per woman. The average fertility rate for 2017 for all developed countries of the OECD was 1.65.

Some 184,000 babies were born in 2021 (74 born to Jewish mothers, 23% to Arab mothers and 3% to mothers of others).

Sources: Israel Central Bureau of Statistics.
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