The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) on Monday released a study examining the differences between various classes within the Israeli society, revealing widening gaps within it.

The publication "Society in Israel," which was sent to Xinhua, is the fifth one in a series of reports presenting the image of the Israeli society, specifically examines the socioeconomic gaps in the Israeli society in 2010.

The CBS divided in its study different Israeli local authorities and designated them into three categories of low- income class, the middle class and the upper class.

"Society in Israel" found that while 45 percent in the middle and upper class have two providers or more on an average household, the figure stands at 30 percent in the low-income class' areas.

In households in the upper and middle class, the difference between the net income and the household spending average stands on 20 percent, whereas the expenses outweighing the net income by 8.7 percent in the lower class areas.

Sixty-eight percent of the households in Israel live in cities of middle-class status, the study found.

The middle class has the highest rate of mortgage loaners -- 52 percent -- and spends the most on average (765 U.S. dollars) on an average household of two parents with children.

The report specified that its focus this year on socioeconomic features was prompted by the 2011 social justice protest, in which protesters voiced the hardships of the middle class amid the high costs of living and raised public awareness to these issues.