Report: Bowers and Fuchs, Women and Parents in the Labor Market

Bowers, Liora and Hadas Fuchs. “Women and Parents in the Labor Market – Israel and the OECD.” Policy Brief, Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, March 2016.

 

URL: http://taubcenter.org.il/wp-content/files_mf/womenandparents_eng.pdf (PDF)

 

Abstract
This brief examines Israeli women’s labor market outcomes and how maternity and parental leave laws in the country compare with those in the OECD. In recent decades, there has been an increase in employment rates among women – particularly among mothers with young children. With regard to payment rate and length of paid leave over a woman’s lifetime, Israel performs better than or similar to other OECD countries. However, there is a gap between Israel and the OECD when it comes to leave benefits for fathers and the design of parental leave benefits.

New Article: Waichman et al, Reciprocity in Labor Market Relationships

Waichman, Israel, Ch’ng Kean Siang, Till Requate, Aric P. Shafran, Eva Camacho-Cuena, Yoshio Iida, and Shosh Shahrabani. “Reciprocity in Labor Market Relationships: Evidence from an Experiment across High-Income OECD Countries.” Games 6.4 (2015): 473-94.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/g6040473

 

Abstract

We study differences in behavior across countries in a labor market context. To this end, we conducted a bilateral gift-exchange experiment comparing the behavior of subjects from five high-income OECD countries: Germany, Spain, Israel, Japan and the USA. We observe that in all countries, effort levels are increasing while rejection rates are decreasing in wage offers. However, we also find considerable differences in behavior across countries in both one-shot and repeated relationships, the most striking between Germany and Spain. We also discuss the influence of socio-economic indicators and the implications of our findings.

 

 

New Article: Blass, Trends in the Development of the Education System

Blass, Nachum. “Trends in the Development of the Education System,” Policy Paper Series, Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel. Policy Paper No. 2014.13

 

In recent years, several important changes have taken place in the education system: the trend in the demographic composition of pupils has changed significantly; the resources at the disposal of the education system have grown considerably; and with regards to the work force, all of the primary and a large portion of post-primary education teachers are now part of the most recent educational reforms (“New Horizon” and “Courage to Change”).

The professional education qualifications of teachers have improved, and the great majority of them now have higher education. The learning achievements of Israel’s pupils have also improved, as is evident from the results of the Meitzav tests, matriculation exams and international testing. Furthermore, the achievement gaps between pupil populations have narrowed, including those between Jewish and Arab Israeli pupils. Improvement is also evident in the educational environment of schools. Despite these changes, the financial allocation per pupil in Israel is still low relative to the OECD countries, and despite the narrowing of gaps between various population groups, they remain among the largest of the OECD countries. There is still a long way to go until the quality of what the education system provides to its pupils and until pupil achievement, in both learning and educational terms, meet the standards of the countries that Israel seeks to emulate.

For a PDF of the full policy paper, click here.

 

 

Cite: Ibrahim & Beaudet, Effective aid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories?

Ibrahim, Nassar and Pierre Beaudet. "Effective aid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories?." Conflict, Security & Development 12.5 (2012): 481-500.

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URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14678802.2012.744181

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Abstract

The Palestinian Territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, otherwise known as the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), have been a test case for international aid policies and practices for many years, especially since the Oslo agreement between the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the Israeli government in 1993. Yet in many ways, the OPT are unique since they are not a state, not even a fragile state, therefore rendering the applicability of aid principles, as captured by the Paris Declaration, somehow problematic. Despite substantial aid flows over the last years, the problem of the absence of statehood is a fundamental block to development. Moreover, many aid programmes have been, partially at least, instrumentalised to stabilise the occupation. In the meantime, social and economic conditions have deteriorated. Although there are many reasons for that deterioration, we argue that the perpetuation of the Israeli occupation is the most important factor since it reproduces the social, political and economic dislocation of the OPT. This persisting occupation of the OPT, and the consequent external control over land, security, borders and so many other key elements of governance and sovereignty, explain the fact that the many attempts to make aid more ‘effective’, in the spirit of the aid effectiveness principles of the OECD, have failed.