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%.
