I always enjoy some good population statistics. I find them interesting, offering the ability to see trends in society. This might be the best part of the end of the old year and beginning of the new year - it always gets accompanied by a plethora of statistics about the population...

Actualic brings some statistics from the Israel Institute for Democracy that show that the number of Haredi men joining the workforce has decreased in recent years and sits at just 51% relative to 87% of men in the rest of Israeli, non-Haredi, society. On the other hand, the number of Haredi women in the workforce has increased to 76%, and that is relative to 83% in the general Israeli, non-Haredi, female population.

The other side of that coin is the increase of men learning in kollel to 86,000 and another 37,000 yeshiva students. These are increases by 30% and 21% from 2015 alone. In 2018 alone these numbers increased by 6%, despite the Haredi community only growing by 4% in the same time period.

The average household salary in the Haredi community is 15,015nis, which isn't all that bad but it is significantly lower than the average household income in the general population being 22190nis.

More Haredim are going to study in institutions of higher education, with the increase during the past decade being by a factor of 2.5, with an increase of 9% among the men and 12% among the women in just the last two years alone. There are about 12000 Haredi students in the academies of Israel.

MehadriNews of Bet Shemesh bring more statistics, more relevant to Bet Shemesh specifically, from the Israeli Bureau of Statistics. These statistics were taken from a comparison of the 16 largest cities in Israel, Bet Shemesh being among them. 

According to these stats, Bet Shemesh and Rishon Letzion lead the list of cities with 76% of their residents being homeowners living in their own homes. Bet Shemesh also leads the list in population density with 1.3 people per room. Another point Bet Shemesh leads in is the number of people paying off mortgages with 73.6% of all homeowners in the city paying a mortgage.  Bet Shemesh also leads the list in percentage of households with a clothes dryer, being 62.1%, and that is despite the strong sun and wamr temperatures we enjoy here in Bet Shemesh.

An unusual and interesting statistic Bet Shemesh also leads in is the number of people who carry two mobile phones, one being kosher and one being a regular smartphone - 87.3% of Bet Shemesh residents own two or more mobile phones. This sounds too high to me but that is what they discovered.