Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of students in higher education institutions showed a corresponding increase: 91,000 male
students were enrolled compared to 113,000 female students. Women made up 56 percent of
the entire student population: 55 percent in bachelor's degree programs, 57 percent in master's
degree programs, and 52 percent in doctorate degree programs were female.
Employment has risen along with the population, with women accounting for an ever
larger percentage of the workforce. In 1955 approximately 631,000 people were employed. By
2007 this number had grown to 2.9 million. The number of women in the workforce rose
from 25 percent in 1955 to 47 percent in 2007. The sector with the biggest decline is agriculture,
which involved 10 percent of the work force in 1968 but only 2 percent in 2007. The professions
and business grew during this period from 56 to 76 percent of the workforce.
CITIES AND COMMUNITIES
Israel has 214 urban locales, defi ned as places with more than 20,000 residents: cities, suburbs,
and larger towns. About 130 are mainly or all Jewish, and about 90 are mostly or all Arab. The
urban population is 5,830,000, or more than 90 percent of Israel's total population. There are
almost 1,000 villages, kibbutzim, moshavim, and small towns, whose population totals about
540,000 people, just 8.5 percent of Israel's population; about 950 are Jewish, 33 are Arab, and
the rest have a mixed population.
By defi nition, cities have more than 200,000 residents in the incorporated area. The largest
cities are Jerusalem, with 747,000 residents; Tel Aviv, with 384,400; Haifa, with 266,300; Rishon
LeZion, with 222,000; Ashdod, with 204,200; and Beer Sheba, with 185,000. These fi gures are
misleading, however. The Tel Aviv metropolitan area is the most highly populated in Israel
with more than 1.2 million people; the central region has about 1.7 million in addition to those
living in Tel Aviv.
The reason for this disparity is that Jerusalem has virtually no incorporated suburbs but
has been able to expand its boundaries outwards, while Tel Aviv is surrounded by separately
governed suburban towns. It is also the most densely populated city in Israel with 18,388 people
per square mile (7,100 people per square kilometer). The Jerusalem metropolitan area has al-
most 900,000, followed by Haifa's metropolitan area with about 870,000. Israel's northern and
southern regions are fairly evenly balanced, with more than 1.2 million people and a bit over
1 million, respectively.
Despite the statistically high population density, there are many open areas in all parts of
the country. One reason is the relative lateness of suburban development, which relates to
people having automobiles and the ability to buy private homes. In Israel, houses (villas) or
row houses (cottages) are uncommon in built-up areas, where most people live in apartment
buildings. In addition, the Jewish National Fund, which owns a great deal of land outside the
cities, has traditionally been reluctant to hand over real estate for housing developments given
its historic priority to agriculture.
Small towns, defi ned as those with fewer than 2,000 residents, include the kibbutz (col-
lective), the moshav (cooperative), and the Arab village. In the past, these settlements were
agriculture based, but today they often furnish suburban or residential housing for people
who work in larger places nearby. If they are too far from centers of population or not in good
