Women in Israel

Israel had 4,949,800 women at the end of 2023; 31.3% were aged under 18, 54.8% were aged 18–64, and 13.9% were 65 or older.[5] About 1.20 million women were mothers of children under 18 in 2023, and 90% of these mothers lived with a spouse, while the remainder headed lone-parent families.[5] Women have participated in the development of Zionism and in Israeli public life from the pre-state Yishuv onward, including defense, government, social activism, and the arts.[1]

Women have held the right to vote since the state’s establishment in 1948, and legislation generally provides women and men equal status in employment, property, inheritance, and access to credit.[6][7] The legal framework combines equal-opportunity guarantees with provisions concerning maternity and parenthood, while religious jurisdiction remains central to marriage and divorce.[8] Israel has no single-document constitution, and the Declaration of Independence’s equality pledge is a foundational commitment rather than a constitutionally binding provision in its own right.[2][9]

Women’s experiences differ substantially across Jewish, Arab, Haredi, and other communities and across local settings.[10][11] Educational participation and employment have expanded, but these changes have not produced equivalent representation in all leadership positions.[3][5] In 2023, women were 55.8% of employed academic professionals but 30.7% of managers, illustrating the distinction between professional participation and managerial representation.[5]

Women’s suffrage became an issue in 1903 when Yishuv delegates assembled to establish a Jewish representative body in Eretz Yisrael.[12] Opposition came from sections of the Old Yishuv, farmers, Sephardic Jews, and particularly Orthodox Jews of European origin; some opponents treated women’s electoral participation as a matter of religious principle.[12] Between 1917 and 1926, the struggle over voting and eligibility for office became a major question in the Jewish community’s institution-building.[3]

The Union of Hebrew Women for Equal Rights in Eretz Israel, led by Sara Azaryahu, cooperated with other women’s organizations to secure electoral rights.[3] Rosa Welt-Strauss was among its founders and leaders in 1919 and campaigned for women’s ability to vote, hold leadership positions, and sponsor families making aliyah.[13] Women constituted 4.5% of the 314 delegates elected in 1920, 25 of 221 delegates in 1925, and 25 of 171 delegates in 1944.[3] On January 15, 1926, the elected assembly declared women’s equal rights in civil, political, and economic life; the Mandate government ratified the declaration in 1927.[3]

Local enfranchisement followed a separate timetable: women gained the local vote in Jerusalem in 1932 and in Petah Tikvah in 1940.[3] By 1948, women in all Jewish localities could vote and seek office.[3] Arab-Palestinian women were outside the political community constructed by this suffrage movement, although an organized Arab-Palestinian women’s movement participated in social, political, and national affairs from the 1920s.[3]

Women of the Second Aliyah sought education, self-actualization, and economic independence through work outside the home, regarding their labor as part of the Zionist project.[14] Their contribution extended beyond agricultural pioneering into civil occupations, including work regarded as traditionally feminine but understood by its practitioners as nationally important.[14] Nevertheless, paid employment in the Yishuv was concentrated in textiles, education, healthcare, and domestic service, and women generally received lower wages than men.[15] Occupational patterns changed during World War II, when many men left the civilian workforce.[15]

During the 1920s, the Working Women’s Council challenged occupational barriers and promoted training for women.[12] From the early 1930s, its work increasingly shifted toward services for women in family roles, including childcare centers.[12] These changes reflected continuing tensions over women’s employment, family responsibilities, and public participation.[12]

During World War II, WIZO, the Council of Working Women, and Hadassah sought admission of Jewish women from Mandatory Palestine to the British Army’s Auxiliary Territorial Service.[16] Permission to recruit 5,000 women was granted in October 1941, with 2,000 to be recruited immediately.[16] Ultimately, 3,500 Hebrew women served in the ATS and 700 in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, undertaking driving, nursing, administrative, and munitions work.[16] Some subsequently joined Jewish underground organizations or the Israel Defense Forces.[16]

Rachel Cohen-Kagan and Golda Meir were the two women among the Declaration of Independence’s 37 signatories.[17] Cohen-Kagan, who represented WIZO in pre-state institutions, signed before Meir because the signatures were ordered alphabetically in Hebrew.[17] Recalling the occasion, she said: “When a person feels that a dream becomes a reality and their heart fills with joy, they can scale the rooftops.”[17] Before the first Knesset election, WIZO merged with the Union of Hebrew Women for Equal Rights to contest the election as an all-women party; its single seat went to Cohen-Kagan.[17]

Cohen-Kagan argued before the January 1949 elections that women’s perspectives were essential to welfare, children’s and older people’s social security, and education.[17] In 1951, she proposed a bill titled “Family and Equality of Women,” opposed violence against women, and supported women’s military service.[17] WIZO did not contest another election independently after the Knesset dissolved in 1951; Cohen-Kagan returned as a Liberal Party member in 1961 and served four years.[17] Meir became labor minister in 1949 and prime minister in 1969.[3]

Second-wave feminist organizing began in Israel in 1970, and the first radical women’s movement was established in 1972.[18] Activism expanded after the 1973 Yom Kippur War heightened awareness of gendered divisions of responsibility.[18] Mizrahi feminism emerged during the late 1970s and 1980s, while identity-based divisions became increasingly important from the late 1990s.[18] Twenty-first-century feminism consequently encompasses a broader range of constituencies while remaining internally divided.[18]

The Women’s Equal Rights Law of 1951 gave married women full competence in managing property and custody of their children and annulled discriminatory provisions of the Succession Act, while retaining religious jurisdiction over marriage and divorce.[3] The law also criminalized bigamy, including where certain religious courts recognized the practice.[19] Other interventions established civil inheritance procedures, and a 2001 amendment allowed Muslim and Christian women to bring alimony claims in civil family courts rather than religious courts.[19]

The minimum marriage age for women was set at seventeen by legislation in 1950, and the Women’s Employment Law of 1954 secured maternity leave.[3] Later law defined a minor as a person under eighteen and criminalized marrying, officiating at, or assisting in a minor’s marriage without judicial authorization, without distinguishing liability by gender.[9] Criminal liability does not itself establish whether the marriage is valid, which is usually determined by the parties’ personal-status law.[9] By 2017, maternity leave had been extended from fourteen to fifteen weeks.[20]

The Equal Employment Opportunities Law of 1988 prohibited workplace discrimination based on gender, marital status, and parenthood and treated sexual harassment as workplace discrimination subject to civil and criminal sanctions.[21] The Prevention of Sexual Harassment Law followed in 1998.[21] That year also saw the establishment of the Authority for the Advancement of the Status of Women to coordinate and monitor national and local government activity, promote legislation, and advise on enforcement.[21]

A 2000 amendment to the Women’s Equal Rights Law prohibited discrimination, supported substantive equality and affirmative action, and required adequate representation of women in public bodies.[22] It also addressed equality in social rights and appointments in the security forces, without repealing the exclusions concerning marriage and divorce.[22] Inheritance legislation makes no gender distinction among heirs, and the cited nationality provisions do not distinguish parents by gender or marital status.[9]

Neither the Declaration’s equality principle nor the Women’s Equal Rights Law received constitutional force, and the 1992 Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty does not expressly include equality.[8] Courts have nevertheless interpreted gender equality as a basic principle of the legal system.[8] Judicial decisions opened pilot training to women, recognized their eligibility for religious councils and advocacy in rabbinical courts, and prohibited gender segregation in cemeteries and public spaces.[4]

Women’s Knesset representation remained low for decades: between 1961 and 1999, the number serving never exceeded twelve, or 10% of members.[23] Eight women, approximately 7% of members, were elected to the Seventh Knesset in 1969, the year Golda Meir became prime minister.[3] Women’s share of local elected representatives fell from 4.2% in 1950 to 3.1% in 1965.[3] Dalia Itzik served as Knesset Speaker from 2006 to 2009, becoming the first woman to hold the office.[1]

National representation increased from fourteen women elected in 1999 to twenty-nine in 2015.[23] Following the retirement of several male members during the 20th Knesset, women occupied thirty-six of its 120 seats, or 30%, before twenty-nine women were elected in 2019.[23] Another historical series records an increase from 14% in the 16th Knesset in 2003 to 25% in the 23rd Knesset in 2020.[3] The latter included Arab-Palestinian, ultra-Orthodox, former Soviet Union immigrant, Ethiopian, and disabled women, reflecting a wider range of social backgrounds.[3]

Numerical gains did not translate uniformly into parliamentary leadership.[23] At the dissolution of the 20th Knesset, only one of the Finance Committee’s fifteen members was a woman.[23] Through the period covered by a 2019 analysis, no more than three women had simultaneously chaired permanent committees; one or none was more common.[23] Some parties reserved candidate-list places for women, a practice that could increase representation but also limit the placement of women who performed strongly in primaries.[23] Shas and United Torah Judaism did not admit women to their candidate lists in the period described in 2019.[23]

Between 1949 and 1995, only five women served as government ministers.[23] In 2017, women held 19% of ministerial and deputy-ministerial positions, compared with an OECD average of 27.9%.[23] Dated snapshots show subsequent variation: the 2021 human-rights reporting period included thirty-five women in the Knesset, nine in a thirty-five-member cabinet, four among fifteen Supreme Court members, and fourteen among 257 mayors and local council heads.[7] Municipal party lists composed of at least one-third women were eligible for an additional 15% in campaign funding.[7]

In August 2023, there were twenty-nine women and ninety-one men in the Knesset, six women and twenty-six men among ministers, and only two women among thirty-two ministry directors general.[4] As of March 2024, thirty women served in the 25th Knesset, representing 25% of its membership.[24] Five women served as ministers in a government with thirty-one ministries.[24] In the 2024 local elections, women won fourteen leadership positions among 242 authorities holding elections; women constituted 27.5% of council members in Jewish authorities and 2% in Arab authorities.[24]

Public-sector employment presents a similar contrast between overall participation and seniority.[24] Women were 63% of civil servants in 2023 but 45.5% of senior staff, and they held 37% of positions in the seven most senior civil-service levels in 2022.[24] In 2024, women represented 14% of personnel in three top government-management groups and 7% of ministry directors general; none held a permanent director-general appointment at the reporting date.[24] Earlier figures from 1997 placed women at 60% of public-service workers but only 15% of senior positions.[25]

Girls’ eligibility for a matriculation certificate exceeded boys’ in 2022: 75.2% of female twelfth-grade pupils qualified, compared with 65.9% of male pupils.[5] Girls also had lower dropout rates.[5] Women constituted 60.3% of students overall in the 2022/23 figures, including 55.1% of university students and 78.7% of students in colleges of education.[5] Earlier figures for 2010 put women at 54.7% of first-degree students and 57.9% of first-degree graduates.[21]

Educational advantages have a longer history than these recent figures.[25][26] In the late 1990s, women received more bachelor’s degrees than men and reached 40% of doctorate recipients, yet constituted only 8% of tenured professors.[25] In data reported in 2008, 15.1% of women aged eighteen or older held bachelor’s degrees, compared with 12.3% of men; corresponding master’s-degree figures were 8.0% and 7.4%.[26] At that time, women made up 70% of workers in occupations identified as traditionally female, including teaching, cleaning, and clerical work.[26]

For 2023, employment rates were 58.3% for women and 65.4% for men.[5] Among employed women, 67.7% usually worked full-time, 32.3% part-time, and 9.5% were self-employed.[5] Ninety percent were satisfied with their work, but only 55% were satisfied with their income, compared with 70% of men.[5] Other series covering narrower age groups show higher rates: figures discussed in 2024 put employment among Jewish women aged 25–64 at 83%, compared with 87% among Jewish men.[10] Women’s employment rose from around 60% in the 1990s to 80% in the second decade of the twenty-first century in that account.[10]

Haredi women’s employment reached approximately 81% in 2022, similar to the rate among non-Haredi Jewish women, compared with around 50% among Haredi men.[10] In the 1990s, fewer than half of both Haredi women and men were employed; women’s employment subsequently increased, while men’s fell below 40% in the early 2000s before recovering toward its earlier level by the late 2010s.[10] A separate series reported an increase among Haredi women from about 70% in 2016 to 80.8% in the second quarter of 2026, approaching 83.7% among non-Haredi Jewish women.[27]

For Arab women aged 25–64, employment was 45% in 2022, compared with 77% among Arab men, and women’s rate had doubled over two decades.[10] A separate account placed employment among Arab women at 45% in the second quarter of 2023, up from 33% in 2014.[28] Rising matriculation and academic-education rates accompanied this expansion, as did increased employment among women without either academic qualifications or matriculation certificates.[28] Government reporting identifies barriers including educational and Hebrew-language gaps, limited local employment opportunities, insufficient subsidized childcare, and inadequate public transportation in some communities.[24]

Pay statistics vary by period, population, and measure and do not constitute a single directly comparable series.[3][29] For salaried employees in 2018, average gross monthly income in Jerusalem was NIS 9,620 for men and NIS 7,380 for women, a women-to-men ratio of 77%.[29] Corresponding ratios were 68% nationally, 70% in Haifa, and 63% in Tel Aviv.[29] Jerusalem’s ratio increased from 71% in 2008 to 77% in 2018.[29] Weekly hours differed: Jerusalem men averaged forty-three hours and women thirty-four, compared with national averages of forty-five and thirty-seven respectively.[29] These monthly income figures are therefore not a direct comparison of equal work.[29]

A different earnings series placed women at 82.7% of men’s earnings in 2008 and 84% in 2018.[3] Historical monthly work-income figures for 2009 were NIS 6,280 for women and NIS 9,500 for men.[21] Among people aged 25–39 in 2021, monthly wages were NIS 10,172 for non-Haredi Jewish women and NIS 14,728 for men; NIS 7,965 for Arab women and NIS 8,517 for men; and NIS 6,670 for Haredi women and NIS 9,848 for men.[24] A Diversity Index comparison covering 2015–2020 found that gender wage gaps decreased only moderately.[10]

Childcare costs place pressure on working parents, and a 2021 comparison of forty-one developed countries ranked Israel thirty-first for family support across parental leave, early-childhood education, teaching quality, and childcare affordability.[10] During the COVID-19 crisis, women’s unemployment increased as parents, mostly mothers, remained home to care for children.[3] Earlier reporting also identified particular economic hardship among lone parents and immigrant women from the former Commonwealth of Independent States and Ethiopia.[25]

In East Jerusalem, women’s educational attainment has not translated into substantial access to quality employment.[11] A 2025 study found that women were more educated than men and constituted two-thirds of East Jerusalem high-school graduates pursuing studies in Israeli higher-education institutions.[11] Their employment remained low relative to Arab women elsewhere in Israel and to Israeli society overall.[11] Barriers included limited childcare, transport and access difficulties, discrimination, traditional norms, and concerns about working in West Jerusalem during periods of security tension.[11]

Women accounted for 34.3% of Israeli high-tech employment in 2023, approximately 151,000 workers compared with 290,000 men.[5] A separate 2025 account reported that women’s high-tech employment had increased 65% over the preceding decade to about 130,000, while their 33.5% share of jobs had changed little over three decades.[30] These estimates come from separate releases and should not be read as a continuous statistical series.[5][30] Women held 17% of senior-management positions in private high-tech companies, 24.3% of management roles in public companies, and 10% of startup chief executive positions in that account.[30]

Representation differed across technological fields: women constituted 38% of employees in enterprise-software and life-sciences companies but 21% in communications and semiconductor companies.[30] Women-led companies received 4.3% of capital raised in the recent years covered, and 40% of Israeli venture-capital firms had no female partner.[30] Women’s share of students in high-tech-related academic programs increased from 24% in 2012 to 32% in 2023.[30]

Figures reported in 2026 placed women’s high-tech employment at approximately 135,000 in 2025, about 34% of the industry workforce.[27] About 7,500 Haredi women worked in the sector, constituting 5.5% of women employed there, compared with Haredi women’s 11% share of the overall female population.[27] As Haredi women’s employment increased, the policy challenge increasingly concerned access to stable, higher-paying occupations rather than entry into employment alone.[27]

The IDF Women’s Corps was founded on May 16, 1948, by officers who had previously served in the British army.[31] The 1949 Security Service Law provided for conscription of eligible citizens and permanent residents, initially setting service at thirty months for men and eighteen months for women.[31] Women could seek discharge on religious or conscientious grounds or because of parenting, marriage, or pregnancy.[31] A 1949 poll found 92% support for equal rights for women, but opinion on peacetime female conscription was divided: 52.5% supported it and 47.5% opposed it.[31]

Initially, women were assigned primarily to office work, nursing, and teaching, with combat and other roles restricted.[31] The Alice Miller case led to a 1995 High Court ruling that women had a right to equality in military service and should not be excluded from pilot training.[31] The first female navigator graduated in December 1998, and women began training in combat-related occupations in 1999.[22] A 2000 amendment to the Defense Service Law established women’s right to serve in any position on equal terms with men unless the position’s inherent nature required otherwise.[22][31]

Roles opened over time included pilots, naval officers, and combat positions in units such as Caracal.[31] The Women’s Corps was dissolved in 2001.[31] By 2021, women accounted for 18% of combat soldiers, while the assault echelon remained restricted to men in that account.[31] Women’s combat service is voluntary, even within a system of compulsory service for eligible women and men.[32]

A November 2019 legal account described the draft as generally applying to qualified male and female citizens or residents from age eighteen.[33] Female conscripts generally served twenty-four months, with different periods for some older immigrants and medical professionals.[33] Exemptions included pregnancy, motherhood, specified conscience or religious-family-background grounds, and religious conviction.[33]

Four women petitioned the High Court in 2020 for access to elite-unit selection processes.[34] Following pilot programs and reviews, women’s training tracks gradually opened in Yahalom, Unit 669, the operational mobility unit, and other elite pathways.[34] A 2026 account placed women at approximately 21.2% of the IDF combat force.[34]

The First Mizrahi Feminist Annual Conference, held in Netanya in 1995, marked an important moment in organizing around ethnic differences within Israeli feminism.[35] By the 1990s, Mizrahi activists were articulating experiences of exclusion and marginalization within a movement dominated by Ashkenazi women.[35] The development followed tensions over the application of liberal feminist ideas, brought by some immigrants in the 1970s, within an ethnically divided society.[35] Mizrahi feminist activism challenged appeals to universal sisterhood that failed to benefit women across ethnic groups.[35]

Modern Orthodox feminism has developed through women’s Jewish learning, ritual participation, discussions of sexuality and the female body, and religious leadership.[36] Educational milestones included Pelech religious girls’ high school under Alice Shalvi in 1975, where girls studied Talmud as boys did, and Michlelet Bruria, opened in 1977.[36] Later institutions expanded advanced study opportunities for women.[36]

A 1988 legal ruling enabled Leah Shakdiel to join Yerucham’s religious council.[36] Women received permission to serve as religious-law advocates in religious courts in 1990, and Nishmat opened a program in the late 1990s to train women as halakhic advisers.[36] These developments extended women’s participation within religious institutions rather than confining feminist activity to secular settings.[36]

Israeli family-violence legislation authorizes courts and religious tribunals to issue protective orders, require participation in treatment plans, and order weapons confiscation under statutory conditions.[9] A family or marriage relationship is not a defense against conviction for assault or sexual offenses.[9] Government-supported services include shelters, transitional apartments, emergency telephone lines, and sexual-assault victim aid centers.[9]

During the 2021 reporting year, twenty-two women and girls were killed by male partners or other family members.[7] A contemporaneous estimate put more than 200,000 women in situations of domestic violence, while a welfare ministry hotline received 7,977 calls between January and October.[7] Services included sixteen ministry-operated shelters and legal aid for women seeking protective orders.[7]

Government reporting recorded thirty-two women killed in femicide cases in 2023 and another twenty-four by October 2024.[24] Arab women constituted 53% of victims in 2023 and 58% in the first ten months of 2024; corresponding Jewish shares were 34% and 38%.[24] During the first six months of the war following October 7, domestic-violence complaints and shelter entries were lower than during the corresponding COVID-19 emergency period, while reported cases were more severe.[24]

Women’s pursuit of equality formed part of Jewish national institution-building before independence and continued through the creation of electoral rights, labor organizations, legal protections, and public institutions.[3][37] Women’s contributions encompassed both occupations associated with pioneering and work in education, healthcare, administration, and family support that participants also understood as serving the national project.[14][15] Their military participation likewise connected pre-state service, wartime British service, and the development of the IDF.[16][31]

The expansion of women’s education and preparation for the modern labor market has been an important component of Israel’s economic development.[10] Women’s majority share among students and employed academic professionals, together with their substantial participation in high-tech, demonstrates the breadth of their contribution to the country’s professional workforce.[5] At the same time, lower shares in management and political leadership distinguish participation in national life from equivalent access to institutional authority.[5][24]

Marriage and divorce remain a major area of disagreement over gender equality because religious courts apply different personal-status systems to Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Druze communities.[7] Under the Jewish divorce system described in 2021, either spouse could initiate proceedings, but both had to consent to finalize the divorce; a husband’s refusal could prevent a woman from remarrying.[7] In 2017, international review raised concerns about pressure on women to concede terms to obtain a get and recommended civil marriage and divorce options.[20]

Military integration involves disagreements over operational requirements, mixed-gender service, and religious accommodation.[31][34] The Joint Service Ordinance was revised in 2017 after complaints that earlier rules had been interpreted in ways that excluded women.[31] An armored-service pilot launched that year was described as successful by senior officers in 2018, but its graduates were not subsequently placed in armored combat roles and training did not continue at that stage.[31] Explanations differed, including disputed assessments of success, suspected religious pressure, and stated manpower and infrastructure considerations.[31] By 2026, objections from some rabbis and public figures coexisted with support for women’s service within religious Zionist communities.[34]

Institutional policy also generated dispute in 2023, when the government approved a bill to replace the independent Authority for the Advancement of the Status of Women with a body subordinate to a minister.[4] The proposal removed stated objectives including preventing violence against women and coordinating gender-equality efforts, alongside wider policy debates over paternity leave, service discrimination, gender segregation, and rabbinical-court powers.[4] These were proposals and disputes of that period, rather than evidence that all the proposed changes became law.[4]