Israelis choosing home over away as emigration drops to lowest level in 30 years

Emigration has dropped to its lowest level in decades, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics reports.

By World Israel News Staff

The number of Israelis who moved overseas dropped to its lowest level in nearly 30 years, revealed a new report from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics published on Tuesday.

The report says that 14,300 residents went abroad in 2017 and stayed there for a year or more continuously (8,400 Israelis returned to Israel in 2017).

It marks an ongoing downward trend in the number of Israeli departures and a 6 percent decrease from the 15,000 departures of 2016.

The 2017 number, averaging 1.6 departures for every 1,000 residents, is the lowest since 1990, says the report. It notes this is part of a continuous downward trend since 2002 regarding the number of Israelis moving abroad. The number of departures in 2017 is a 48 percent drop over 2002 (27,300).

Graph showing decline in emigration per 1,000 residents from 1970-2017. (CBS)

Arutz7 points out that there was heavy migration during the peak of the Second Intifada from 2001 to 2002.

The report estimates the total number of Israelis abroad as between 561,000 to 599,000.

The ethnic breakdown of the 2017 emigrants are as follows: Jews (71%), Arabs (5%), non-Arab Christians or religiously unaffiliated (24%).

The report breaks down the emigrants by sex and age. In 2017, about 7,700 (54%) of the immigrants were men, and approximately 5,600 (46%) were women.

The median age of the men was 27.9 years v. 30.5 years for the women. The report notes that “men tend to leave the country at a younger age than women.”

ImmigrationIsraeli population