Tu B’Av: The Percentage of Singles in Israel is on the Rise

At what average age do Israelis get married?  Tu B’Av, the “holiday of love” which is today, the Government Statistical Bureau published statistics about the percentage of singles in the Jewish sector. According to the data, the average age of marriage among men who are marrying for the first time in 2014, was 27.6 years, while the average age of women getting married that year was 25. This data reflects a delay of 3.5 years among brides and almost 3 years among the grooms relative to the existing data over the last 45 years. 

The numbers show that the percentage of Jewish single men who are 25-29 rose from 28% in 1970 to 65% by the end of 2014, while the percentage of Jewish single women rose from 13% to 50%.

What is especially interesting is that there is a significant gap between the various cities in the country. There seemed to be a corollary that the more religious a town, the higher the percentage of marriages at younger ages. For instance, the Government Statistical Bureau revealed that while the percentage of singles aged 25-29 in secular Tel Aviv stood at 83% and in Kiryat Tivon at 85%, in religious-majority Bnei Brak, the percentage of single men of this age was only 20%, in Elad, it was only 11%, and in Modi’in Ilit, it was only 5%.

The Government Statistical Bureau also checked the percentage of older singles. It found 11% unmarried among Jewish men aged 45-49, while the percentage was only 3% at the end of 1970. The percentage of Jewish single women ages 45-49 rose in the same period from 2% to 9%.
The differences between different cities concerning older singles also appeared to depend on the religiosity of the city: While in Tel Aviv, the percentage of older singles was 28%, in Elad the percentage stood at 2.1% and in Modi’in Ilit it was only 0.2%.