The wage gap between men and women in Israel has widened in the last decade from 20% to 23%. In developed countries, the gender pay gap has narrowed from 17% at the beginning of the century to 13% today. In Israel, on the other hand, it decreased significantly from 28% in 2001 to 20% in 2011, but since then it has been on the rise and reached 23% in 2018.
This emerges from a study by the vice president of the Shoresh Institute for Socio-Economic Research and the director of the Department of Environmental Economics and Management, at the Hebrew University, Prof. Eyal Kimhi, which is published today on the occasion of Women’s Day. It should be noted that Kimchi data refer to the median wage and not to the average wage and are therefore different from the data usually published by the CBS.
Read more in Calcalist:
The figure for the withdrawal in Israel is largely the reason for the study, but most of the study does not refer to the entire economy but to those aged 27-38, employees at the beginning of their professional path and at the age when starting a family and expanding it. The study shows that marital status, marriage and the birth of children have a dramatic effect on the gender pay gap.
The wage gap at these ages is 33%. The total contribution of the marital status to the overall gap is 28% out of the 33. This means that the marital status is responsible for 85% of the gender gap. Of course, a large part of this gap is created as a result of a reduction in working hours or beyond part-time work due to the prevailing norm in Israel that most of the care of children and the household belongs to the woman.
The phenomenon is basically divided into “fine on marriage” and “fine on children”. Among people without children, married Jewish men earn almost 17% more than unmarried Jewish men, whereas married Jewish women earn only 4.5% more than unmarried Jewish women. This difference is responsible for 7% of the 33% gap at these ages.
The birth penalty for Arab women is particularly high, a 50% reduction in wages with the birth of the first child. On the other hand, the birth penalty for Jewish women is 6% with the first child and another 6% with the fifth child. On the other hand, the wages of Jewish men increased by almost a quarter with the birth of the first child and continue to grow with the second child.
Kimchi points out that among the other factors in the gender pay gap is the fact that women are less likely to take 5 units of matriculation in mathematics; less likely to study other science subjects on an extended scale; Rewards like industry and infrastructure. ” However all these factors are responsible for only 4.5% of the 33%, ie about 15% of the gap.
Kimchi says that “wage gaps in Israel are growing and that should be a cause for concern.” According to him, the family issue also affects the behavior. For example, a significant factor in the wage gap is that women are going to study less in the high-tech, engineering and prestigious professions. But part of the reason they go to study engineering and computers less is, he says, the assumption that it will be less useful for them when they have children.