The Great Immigration Since 1948: The majority of immigrants from Israel are under the age of 45

Detailed data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics on the number of Israeli immigrants in 2024 following the war reveal that 11,000 Israelis out of the total who immigrated last year were residents of Tel Aviv, about 6,000 from Haifa, 5,370 from Netanya, and about 5,000 from Jerusalem.

The data of the department, which was published about a week ago and reported in detail by Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper today, Sunday, is a "worrying" indicator regarding the number of immigrants from Israel abroad, and regarding their age groups, as the majority of them are under 45 years old.

The data covers the number of immigrants between January of last year and November of the same year. During these months, 78,600 Israelis immigrated from Israel. Ironically, when the data was analyzed, it turned out that the number of those who immigrated in the last month, December, reached 82,700 Israelis, about 4,100 more. According to the newspaper, the number is the highest ever since the establishment of Israel in 1948, as the total number of immigrants last year is three times more than its counterpart in 2023 (53,000 Israelis), which was originally considered a record number.

The data shows that in October 14,816 Israelis immigrated, and in August 11,394 more. Similar numbers were recorded in July and September, with 7,917 and 8,568 Israelis immigrating respectively.

As for the ages of immigrants, the department’s data shows that 21,262 are under 19 years old, which means that the percentage of children and adolescents among all immigrants has reached 27%. It also shows that 37,567 of the immigrants in the previous year were between 20-45 years old, which constitutes 47.8% of all immigrants. To summarise, three out of every four immigrants are under 45 years old, and the majority of immigrants are families with children.

Among older generations, there was a gradual decline in the number of immigrants. In the 45-49 age group, 4,662 Israelis immigrated, in the 50-54 age group, 3,483 Israelis immigrated, and in the 55-59 age group, 2,693 Israelis immigrated. Although the department’s data indicated that 304 of the immigrants were over 100 years old, the newspaper questioned the previous data, and attributed the inclusion of the number in the data to the fact that it was not included in the data for previous years.

In this context, the data reveals that the number of immigrants from the northern settlements, which were evacuated after the outbreak of the war with Lebanon, "was not large" compared to the number of immigrants from other areas. For example, it was found that 137 Israelis from "Kiryat Shmona", 60 others from the "Shlomi" settlement, and 32 from Metula immigrated.

The situation is not much different in the settlements of the "Gaza Envelope"; it turned out that 196 settlers from "Sderot" emigrated, in addition to 13 others from Kibbutz "Be'eri", 8 from "Kfar Aza", and 2 from "Nahal Oz". Although the Central Bureau of Statistics did not address the reason for the increase in the number of immigrants last year, Haaretz, in a report on the subject that it also published today, linked this migration to the security-political situation, which worsened for the worse as a result of the war.

New Arab