At the end of 2021, the Druze population in Israel was approximately 149,000 (preliminary data) – more than a tenfold increase since the founding of the State of Israel (14,500 in 1949).
At the end of 2020, the localities with the largest population of Druze were Daliyat al-Karmel (17,300) and Yirka (17,100).
At the end of 2020, children aged 0 to 14 comprised approximately one-quarter (24.7%) of the Druze population. Children make up 27.6% of the Jewish population, approximately one-third (33.0%) of the Moslem population, and approximately one-fifth (21.1%) of the Christian population.
The total fertility rate of Druze women in 2020 was 1.94 children on average, as compared with 2.02 in the previous year. The total fertility rate among Druze women has been declining since the mid-1960s. The peak in fertility – 7.92 children per woman – was measured in 1964.
In 2021, approximately 38,000 households – approximately 1.4% of the total number of households in Israel – were headed by a Druze, similar to the previous year.
Of them, 76.8% households contained employed persons – a number higher than that of the Moslems (71.0%), but lower than that of the Christians (77.5%).
Of the Druze, 38.6% went on to study for a first degree within eight years of graduating high school, compared with 34.0% among students in Arab education.
In the 2020/21 academic year, 5,780 Druze students attended all the institutions of higher education in Israel (except for the Open University). Their number rose by 5.1% as compared with the previous year (2019/20). From a multi-year perspective, the number of Druze students increased by a factor of 3.6 in 20 years (in the 1999/00 academic year, 1,600 Druze students attended institutions of higher education in Israel).
In the 2021/22 school year, 3,574 Druze were employed as teaching staff in the education system, as compared with 3,558 in the 2020/21 school year (an increase of 0.45%).
During the 2021/22 academic year, there were 175 Druze academic teaching staff at institutions of higher education, compared to 156 during the 2020/21 academic year – an increase of 12.0%.
In 2020, 24,200 Druze were registered at the Social Service Departments of The Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs, and 19,100 of them were defined as needing intervention (78.8%).
The rate of persons registered among the overall Druze population was 165.9 per 1,000 persons, compared with 122.3 per 1,000 persons among the overall population of Israel. The rate of persons defined as needing intervention among the overall Druze population was 130.7 per 1,000 persons, compared with 82.3 per 1,000 persons among the overall population of Israel.
In the year of verdict 2019, the rate of persons convicted in criminal trials among the Druze population of Israel was about 290 per 100,000. This rate was substantially higher than among residents of Israel overall (about 226 per 100,000 persons).
The most common offences were: offences against public order (26.7%), offences of bodily harm (13.9%) and morality offences (12.1%).
