Bulletin: Public Health, Hospitals, and Professionals

Articles

• Stuart Altman, Should Israel Be Concerned by the High Proportion of Medical Care Paid for Privately
• Hadar Amir et al, Bedouin Women’s Gender Preferences When Choosing Obstetricians and Gynecologists
• Sue Anderson et al, The UK, Israel, and the USA:  The Impact of Healthcare Systems on Health
• Liat Ashkenazi et al, Male Nurses in Israel
• Sarah Ben-Ami and Aliza Yaffe, Palliative Care in Israel: The Nursing Perspective
• Merav Ben-Natan et al, Factors That Influence Israeli Muslim Arab Parents’ Intention to Vaccinate Their Children
• Shuli Brammli-Greenberg et al, Why and How Did Israel Adopt Activity-Based Hospital Payment
• Nissim Cohen, Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Bending the Rules in the Context of Informal Payments for Health Care
• Saralee Glasser et al, Intervention for Antenatal Depression by Public Health Nurses in an Ultra-Orthodox Community
• Anthony D. Heymann, Unsupportive Social Interactions are Associated with Poorer Self-reported Health in Israeli Patients with Diabetes
• Tamar Jacob, Implications of the National Health Insurance Law and for Physical Therapy Services
• Ilya Kagan et al, Public Health Nurses in Israel
• Ahmed Khalaila et al, Health Related Absenteeism of Family Physicians in the Negev
• Liat Lerner-Geva et al, Cultural Disparities in the Use of Medications Among Midlife Women in Israel
• Natali Levin, Medical Malpractice in Israel
• Joseph Mendlovic et al, Geographic Variation in Selected Hospital Procedures and Services
• Basil Porter et al, Community Paediatrics in Israel
• Carlos Quiñonez, Dental Reform in Israel’s National Health Insurance Law
• Mark Schweda et al, Views on End-of-Life Decision Making among Religious and Secular Persons in the USA, Germany, and Israel
• Yaffa Shir-Raz and Eli Avraham, PR Strategies of Pharmaceutical Companies in Countries Where Direct Advertising of Prescription Drugs Is Banned
• Diana Tasher et al, Child Health Care in Israel
• Chen Stein Zamir and Avi Israeli, Perceptions About Routine Childhood Vaccinations Among Jewish Ultra-Orthodox Mothers
• Cheryl Zlotnick et al, Comparing the Health Status of Youth Village Alumni in Israel to the General Population

New Article: Harlap, Reading the Israeli Television Miniseries Nevelot

Harlap, Itay. “Bad Television/ Good (post)Television. Reading the Israeli Television Miniseries Nevelot (Eagles).” Critical Studies in Television (early view; online first).
 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1940161215626565
 
Abstract

Nevelot (Eagles) is an Israeli miniseries about two elderly men who, in their youth, fought for a Jewish Zionist underground movement in Palestine, and who in the present-day, embark upon an all-out, killing spree across the city of Tel Aviv, targeting exclusively the young. Whilst it does not directly address television (TV) per se, key scenes and paratexts convey that Nevelot is by no means ‘regular TV’, and that watching it constitutes a viewing experience which differs altogether from ‘regular TV viewing’; a practice often associated with passivity, femininity and victimhood. Employing terms from Zionist, gender and cultural discursive fields, Nevelot offers a fascinating commentary on contemporary Israeli society and the TV content it produces.

 

 

 

New Article: Betti et al, Unequal Ageing in Europe

Betti, Gianni, Francesca Bettio, Thomas Georgiadis, and Platon Tinios. “Benchmarking the Analysis: Europe, Israel, and the United States.” In Unequal Ageing in Europe. Women’s Independence and Pensions (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015): 81-107.

 

 

Abstract

The treatment of pension gender gaps in the previous chapters has utilized the existence of comparable survey data to characterize pension gender gaps and their key features, using the European countries that participate in the EU SILC survey as a type of gender policy laboratory. It remains to see the extent to which the results derived are corroborated both by other kinds of data and in other advanced countries.

 

 

New Article: Strier & Werner, Stigma in Long Term Care Insurance in Israel

Strier, Roni, and Perla Werner. “Tracing Stigma in Long Term Care Insurance in Israel: Stakeholders’ Views of Policy Implementation.” Journal of Aging & Social Policy (early view; online first).

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08959420.2016.1111726
 
Abstract

Almost all developed countries provide some answers for long term care, but only a few countries in the world such as Japan, Austria, Netherlands, Germany, and Israel have implemented Long Term Care Insurance (LTCI) based on legislation and entitlement principles. In Israel, community-based LTCI social program has achieved multiple goals and considerably improved the life of frail older people. However, some studies show that despite the rising costs of home care and the mandatory and almost universal nature of LTCI there are still cases where people with AD and other types of dementia or their relatives vacillate or even decline to make use of their rights. We examined the question of whether these patterns may reflect the presence of welfare stigma, i.e., stigmatized views of LTCI, either related to identity stigma of persons with AD or to treatment stigma, usually associated to welfare bureaucracy. Based on a qualitative design, this article uses a methodology of personal in depth and focus group triangulation, by which the views of three groups of stakeholders are explored and compared: persons with AD, relatives and professionals. Findings showed the presence of stigmatic self images among persons with AD or other types of dementia, the absence of such images in relatives’ and professionals’ views of them, and of LTCI. However treatment stigma was found to be primarily associated with eligibility determination procedures. The study concludes that LTCI, even when mandated and almost universal may also generate welfare stigma due to the ways in which it is implemented.

 

 

 

New Article: Iecovich & Avivi, Agism and Burnout among Nurses in Long-Term Care Facilities

Iecovich, Esther, and Michal Avivi. “Agism and Burnout among Nurses in Long-Term Care Facilities in Israel.” Aging & Mental Health (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13607863.2015.1102198

 

Abstract

Objectives: The extent to which agism and professional qualifications are associated with nurses’ burnout in long-term care facilities for older adults has been barely examined. This study is aimed to examine the extent to which agism, professional education, and geriatric training explain work burnout.

Method: The study included a convenience sample of 154 nurses working in 17 long-term care facilities in the Tel Aviv area in Israel. To examine agism, Kogan’s Attitudes toward Old People Scale was used, and to probe burnout, the Maslach Burnout Inventory was used.

Results: Overall burnout was significantly explained by agism, nurses’ professional education, length of working as a nurse, and type of facility ownership. When examining each dimension of burnout, agism was a significant predictor of depersonalization and personal achievement.

Conclusion: Agism plays a role in overall burnout. Therefore, training programs that can combat agism can reduce burnout of nurses in long-term care facilities.

 

 

New Article: Borowski, Israel’s Long-Term Care Social Insurance Scheme

Borowski, Allan. “Israel’s Long-Term Care Social Insurance Scheme After a Quarter of a Century.” Journal of Aging and Social Policy 27.3 (2015): 195-214.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08959420.2015.1022101

 

Abstract

Long-term care social insurance schemes exist in a number of countries, while the introduction of such schemes enjoys some support in others. Israel’s long-term care social insurance scheme has been operating since 1988. This article examines the emergence, goals, design, and impacts of this scheme and draws out some of the lessons that can be learned from Israel’s quarter century experience of long-term care social insurance.

 

New Article: Zisberg et al, Adaptation to Life in Continuing Care Communities among Older Adults

Zisberg, Anna, Waheed Kaabiya, and Elena O. Siegel. “Trait of Routinization and Adaptation to Life in Continuing Care Communities among Older Adults in Israel.” Geriatrics & Gerontology International 15.4 (2015): 501-507.

 

URL: http://dx.do.org/10.1111/ggi.12289

 

Abstract

Aim

To examine the relationship between levels of adaptation to independent living in continuing care communities and the personality trait, routinization.

Methods

Using a correlative design, structured face-to-face interviews were carried out with 120 older adults residing in independent housing units across six continuing care facilities in Israel, using the Index of Relocation Adjustment and the Variety Assessment Scale questionnaires.

Results

In a mixed model, one of the two routinization subscales (disliking disruption) was moderately associated with adaptation, controlling for decision to enter the facility, satisfaction with the facility, family relationship, functional status, education, family status and type of setting. Residents who expressed high levels of disliking disruption, higher functional status and less involvement in the decision to enter the facility reported poorer adaptation to their living conditions.

Conclusion

Our findings point out the complexity and intricacy of personal attributes as factors associated with adaptation to transitions in older age, and highlight the potential contribution of the trait of routinization to adaptation. Further research is required to identify ways to best support older adult transitions to institutional environments, considering different personality traits and environments.

New Article: Doron, The Israeli Experience of Regulating Residential Care for Older Persons

Doron, Israel. “The Israeli Experience of Regulating Residential Care for Older Persons.” In Towards Human Rights in Residential Care for Older Persons. International Perspectives (ed. Helen Meenan, Nicola Rees, Israel Doron; New York: Routledge, 2016), 126ff.

Report: A Picture of the Nation, 2015; Taub Center for Social Policy

The Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel Presents:

A Picture of the Nation: Israel’s Society and Economy in Figures, one of the Center’s most popular publications, provides concise and thought-provoking information on Israel’s long-run economic and social trajectories.  Each page of this booklet contains a single graph and short, accompanying text that, when combined, provide the reader with a broad and comprehensive understanding of key socioeconomic issues in Israel today.  Policy makers, the media, the general public, and the global Jewish community look to the Picture of the Nation as an invaluable and highly accessible resource on topics ranging from the labor market to education, poverty and much more.

For the English page, including PDF and PPT versions of the report, as well as previous reports (2002-2014), click here.

For the Hebrew page, click here.

PDF version in English: Picture of the Nation, 2015.

PDF version in Hebrew: תמונת מצב המדינה, 2015.

Conference Paper: Berkovitch & Manor, Grandparents Care Work in a Neo Liberal Era

Berkovitch, Nitza, and Shlomit Manor. “‘We Must Help Them As Much As We Can’: Grandparents Care Work in a Neo Liberal Era.” Inequality in the 21st Century, LSE, London, July 4, 2015, 8:30am.

 

URL: https://sase.confex.com/sase/2015am/webprogram/Paper2416.html

 

Abstract

Similar to many other countries, the Israeli family has undergone major changes in the last few decades, chief among these are processes of individualization and the emergence of “new forms of families” or postmodern families. However, the Israeli family—traditional or new—still plays a central role in public life and in the lives of individuals from all social groups. In this paper we focus on grandparents and grandparental child care within these changing configurations of the family.

In addition to cultural factors, the care provided by grandparents, is also influenced by the “new economy”. In the wake of globalization and neo liberalization, we have witnessed increasing demands on professionals – both in term of their hours and availability. There has also been a rise in the number of workers in hourly-waged “precarious” or “bad jobs” with little to no flexibility. These trends coupled with the growing numbers of working mothers with young children have resulted in a “care deficit” and a growing demand for child care.  In a familist society, such as Israel, this is translated into the young parents’ expectations that their parents, the grandparents, will help shoulder the care work.

Based on in-depth interviews of 32 Jewish retirees, men and women with heterogeneous class backgrounds, we examine how economic forces and cultural factors have shape gendered grandparents’ care practices and meanings. Though both men and women feel that grandparenthood is an important and central aspect in their lives, they still grandparent differently. Whereas women tend to perceive taking care of their grandchildren as a continuation of their role as mothers, helping adult children juggle between work and family, for men fatherhood continues by carrying on their “provider” role and assisting their children financially. These men “slide” easily into the grandfather role without much internal deliberation, whereas women are much more likely to debate among themselves about what constitutes “a good grandmother” and what kind of grandmother they are or would like to be. They oscillate between the individualistic cultural imperative of “it’s me time” and the motherly imperative that, in the Israeli context, never ends.

This gendered perception of grandparenting has two interrelated implications. One, it tends to reproduce the gendered division of care work both among the grandparents and the young couples. It is most often the grandmother who takes responsibility, though the grandfather might tag along. Moreover, the care grandparents provide is usually understood in terms of helping the young mother (daughter or daughter-in-law) more than the father. Two, this emerging Israeli version of “two- person career” (Papanek 1973) family where the (house)wife, who now works full- time, is replaced by care-on-demand grandmothers enables employers to place increasing demands on workers’ time and commitments, assuming that every worker (with family responsibilities) has someone at home to help with domestic care work. Thus, neoliberal labor market practices appear to be operating in tandem with and are maintained by gendered moral rationalities, which are based on love, commitment and an ideology of the “good mother”.

 

New Article: O’Rourke et al, Reminiscence Functions and the Health of Israeli Holocaust Survivors

O’Rourke, Norm, Yaacov G. Bachner, Philippe Cappeliez, Habib Chaudhury, and Sara Carmel. “Reminiscence Functions and the Health of Israeli Holocaust Survivors as Compared to Other Older Israelis and Older Canadians.” Aging & Mental Health 19.4 (2015): 335-46.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13607863.2014.938607

 

Abstract

Objectives: Existing research with English-speaking samples indicates that various ways in which older adults recall their past affect both their physical and mental health. Self-positive reminiscence functions (i.e. identity, problem-solving, death preparation) correlate and predict mental health in later life whereas self-negative functions (i.e. bitterness revival, boredom reduction, intimacy maintenance) correlate and predict the physical health of older adults.

Method: For this study, we recruited 295 Israeli Holocaust survivors to ascertain if early life trauma affects these associations between reminiscence and health. In order to distinguish cross-national differences from survivor-specific effects, we also recruited two comparative samples of other older Israelis (not Holocaust survivors; n = 205) and a second comparative sample of 335 older Canadians. Three separate structural equation models were computed to replicate this tripartite reminiscence and health model.

Results: Coefficients for self-negative functions significantly differed between survivors and both Canadians and other older Israelis, and between Canadians and both Israeli samples. However, no differences were found between prosocial and self-positive functions. Moreover, the higher order structure of reminiscence and health appears largely indistinguishable across these three groups.

Conclusion: Early life trauma does not appear to fundamentally affect associations between reminiscence and health. These findings underscore the resilience of Holocaust survivors.

New Article: Stier and Endeweld, Age and Gender in the Israeli Labor Market

Stier, Haya and Miri Endeweld, “Employment Transitions and Labor Market Exits: Age and Gender in the Israeli Labor Market.” Research in Social Stratification and Mobility (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm.2015.01.002

 

Abstract

This study focuses on the employment difficulties of older workers in the Israeli labor market. Using administrative panel data for the years 2005–2010, it traces the employment transitions of workers and their consequences, focusing on age and gender differences. The findings show that in Israel older workers, men and women alike, are indeed less likely to leave their jobs. However, once out of the labor force, they face difficulties in finding new employment. These difficulties are severer for women than for men. Male workers who experience high instability experience job losses, with no substantial age differences. The wage penalties for women are much lower, probably because of their limited opportunities in terms of earnings.

Highlights

 

• Older workers in Israel have higher job stability compared to younger workers.
• Once leaving a job, older workers have more difficulties in finding new employment.
• Women are more likely to experience difficulties in regaining employment compared to men.
• Job transitions are associated with a loss of wage but older workers are not losing more than younger ones.
• Job transitions are less costly for women than for men, probably because of initially lower wages.

New Article: Brown, Re-examining the Transnational Nanny

Brown, Rachel H. “Re-examining the Transnational Nanny. Migrant Carework beyond the Chain.” International Feminist Journal of Politics (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14616742.2015.1007728

 

Abstract

This article explores whether the concept of a global care chain is useful in understanding the migration of careworkers internationally. It examines how an affective approach to understanding migration could supplement the care chain analysis by accounting for the overlapping, shifting, contingent and non-linear networks of emotion that arise during migrations. Analyzing carework through the lens of an “affective economy” is more revealing of the multiple experiences of Filipino gay and transgender caregivers in Tel Aviv and New York, Peruvian careworkers in Spain and Polish careworkers in Germany, as but three brief, illustrative examples. First I will discuss what the care chain approach can illuminate about the multiple and varied stories of migrant careworkers and how it may also essentialize or oversimplify their experiences. I will then suggest that the model naturalizes the caring, biological mother and reinforces geographical and ideological binaries such as North/South, winner/loser and domination/dependency. Finally, I will discuss how the care chain model presents a linear conception of time and space, obscuring the overlapping and multi-directional routes of migration that careworkers travel. Ultimately I will argue that an affective approach creates the theoretical language that can help build what Chela Sandoval calls a coalitional consciousness.

 
 
 
 
 

ToC: Israel Studies Review 28,2 (2013)

Guest Editors’ Introduction: Rethinking the Family in Israel

pp. vii-xii(6)
Authors: Fogiel-Bijaoui, Sylvie; Rutlinger-Reiner, Reina

Articles: The Transformation of Intimacies

Religious Zionist Singles and Late-Modern Youth Culture

pp. 1-17(17)
Author: Engelberg, Ari

Israeli-Palestinian Women and Their Reasons for Divorce: A Comparative Perspective

pp. 18-40(23)
Author: Meler, Tal

Midlife Women in Second Partnerships Choosing Living Apart Together: An Israeli Case Study

pp. 41-60(20)
Author: Or, Ofra

Articles: Families in Transition

‘The Art of the Deal’: Preferences in Spouse Selection among Parents in a Hasidic Community

pp. 61-82(22)
Author: Block, Sima Zalcberg

Crises in Orthodox Israeli Family Life Onstage

pp. 83-101(19)
Author: Rutlinger-Reiner, Reina

Aging, Family, and Preferences for Care among Older Jews and Arabs

pp. 102-121(20)
Author: Halperin, Dafna

Articles: The Boundaries of Family Life

Hybridization and Purification: The Experiences of Mizrachi Middle-Class Adolescents in Israel

pp. 122-139(18)
Author: Selinger, Guy Abutbul

Conceiving Judaism: The Challenges of Same-Sex Parenthood

pp. 140-156(17)
Author: Lustenberger, Sibylle

Israeli ‘Mixed Families’ with Members of Ethiopian Origin: Encounters in the Public Space

pp. 157-173(17)
Author: Benezer, Gadi

“I Earn, Therefore I Exist”: Impoverished Bedouin Mothers Who Become Entrepreneurs

pp. 174-191(18)
Author: Alhuzail, Nuzha Allassad

Migrant Care Workers in Israel: Between Family, Market, and State

pp. 192-209(18)
Author: Shamir, Hila

Articles: Legal Discourse, Private Life

The Spousal Covenant (Brit Hazugiut), or the Covenant with the Status Quo

pp. 210-227(18)
Author: Fogiel-Bijaoui, Sylvie

Articles: Articles: Legal Discourse, Private Life

The Legitimacy of Single Mothers in Israel Examined through Five Circles of Discourse

pp. 228-246(19)
Author: Herbst, Anat

The Anomaly of Custody in Israeli Family Law

pp. 247-263(17)
Author: Mazeh, Yoav

The Child’s Worst Interests: Socio-legal Taboos on Same-Sex Parenting and Their Impact on Children’s Well-Being

pp. 264-281(18)
Author: Triger, Zvi

Children’s Rights in Israeli Case Law: A Spiral Progression

pp. 282-299(18)
Author: Morag, Tamar

Succession Law in Israel: Individualism and the Family

pp. 300-313(14)
Author: Kreiczer-Levy, Shelly

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

pp. 314-324(11)