More women in Israel receive a higher education than Israeli men, yet they still earn significantly less, said a report published Sunday by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).

The report was published prior to International Women’s Day, which is celebrated every March 8.

The findings revealed that at the end of 2014 there were 3,042,900 women aged 15 and above living in Israel, with an average life expectancy of 84.1 years, compared to 80.3 for men.

Marriage and Family life

Women in Israel are tying the knot at a later age and having children at a later age.

The average age for a newly married woman was 25.1, compared to an average age of 24.5 a decade ago. The report further revealed that the average age for marriage varies among sectors. Jewish and Christian brides stood at 26 and 25.3, respectively. Muslim and Druze brides was significantly lower, with 21.9 and 23.8, respectively.

Moreover, the average age of women who gave birth to their first child increased from 26.5 in 2004 to 27.5 in 2014, and the average number of children women expect during her lifetime is 3.08 children. 

Workforce

The average monthly salary of an Israeli woman was 7,439 shekels ($1,900), while their male counterparts were receiving about 11,114 shekels ($2,840), in 2014.

Moreover, the average monthly income for self-employed women was 6,847 shekels ($1,750), compared to 12,454 shekels ($3,180) for men.

CBS explained that the gap was due to the number of hours men and women worked – 45.2 hours per week for men and 36.7 hours for women. Therefore a 16.3 percent salary gap exists between men and women.

With that, the report found that, of the women who are employed, 67.6 percent worked full-time (compared to 86.6 percent of men), while 32.4 percent worked part-time (compared to 13.4 percent of men). Additionally, 75 percent of married mothers were in the labor market. 

The report also revealed that women are happier at work than men – 90 percent of employed women said they were satisfied with their work, compared with 85 percent of men.

Education

68 percent of high school senior girls and only 55 percent of boys were eligible for a matriculation certificate.

Moreover, the findings indicated that in the 2014/15 academic year there were some 311,800 students in Israel enrolled in an institution of higher education, with women accounting for 58.1% of all students.

Th two fields with the highest number of women students were paramedical studies and teaching and education, with 82.7 percent and 80.6 percent, respectively. On the other end of the spectrum, the fields with the fewest women included the physical sciences (37.3 percent), mathematics, statistics and computer science (29.1 percent) and architecture and engineering (27.4 percent).