In honor of Tu B'Av: Love in numbers

Many more Israeli couples are living together and having children without getting married, and the number of unmarried mothers is on the rise, according to an Israel Central Bureau of Statistics report released ahead of Tu B'av, the Jewish holiday of love, on Monday.

The report also showed that Israelis are apparently in no rush to get married. Among Israelis aged 25 to 29, 63 percent of men and 46 percent of women are single.

The rates varied between cities. Among women aged 25 to 29, one in three in Jerusalem and Ashdod, one in two in Rishon Lezion and Haifa, and two out of three in Tel Aviv are single. Among men in the same age group, 46 percent in Jerusalem, 54 percent in Ashdod, 65 percent in Petach Tikva, 70 percent in Haifa, 74 percent in Rishon Lezion and 83 percent in Tel Aviv are single.

At the same time, the trend of living together and having children while unmarried is growing. The number of unmarried couples living together more than doubled over the last decade, from 29,200 in 2004 to 74,820 in 2014.

The number of babies born to unmarried Jewish women tripled over the last 14 years, from 2,600 in the year 2000 to 7,650 so far this year. The number of single mothers also grew from 8,400 in the year 2000 to more than 17,000 this year.

Still, Israel is considered conservative when it comes to the average age of marriage. For women, the average age rose from 21.8 in 1970 to 25.9 this year, and for men, from 25 to 28.

The report indicated that 87 percent of marriages are between previously unmarried people, as compared with 89 percent a decade ago and 90 percent in the 1970s. A further 3.1 percent of marriages are between previously unmarried men and divorced women, and 4.4 percent are between previously unmarried women and divorced men.

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