OECD Reviews of Labour Market and Social Policies: Israel
Tackling the root causes of such deep inequality would greatly enhance the dynamism of the Israeli economy. Greater investment to help workers improve their skills is urgently needed. Welfare-to-work programmes need to be restructured and extended, including by reducing child benefits paid to families who are able to work but do not and by sharply increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit to tackle in-work poverty more effectively. And access to means-tested income supports for the neediest should be improved. Israel has failed to enforce many aspects of its labour legislation, contributing to poor employment conditions for many resident, cross-border and foreign low-income workers. Rules to overcome discrimination against all workers need to be enforced, and the illegal hiring and employment of temporary foreign workers need to be stamped out.
Progress has been made in many of these areas. New legislation and initiatives have been introduced. The challenge is how to make reform work in practice. The consequences of not doing so would be devastating.
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Poverty and Employment Issues for Minority Groups
This chapter looks at Israel’s social chasm between the majority of Jews in Israel’s population and the Arab and ultra-Orthodox minorities. The chapter starts by setting out the vast differences in socio-economic outcomes between these minorities and the rest of the population. These are explained in part by differences in education systems and infrastructural investment in the different communities, but also cultural influences which affect family size and employment behaviour. Socio-economic outcomes of the Arab minority are also affected by limited investment in active labour market policies, unequal access to social services, and failure to implement legislative provisions to tackle discrimination and apply employment quotas. The male ultra-Orthodox Jews or Haredim engage in religious studies rather than labour force participation. Public policy supports this lifestyle by means of exemptions from military service, stipends for religious students and recently increased child allowances. This chapter ends with a summary of the main conclusions.
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