Welfare In Israel Research Articles

Preserving competition and economic welfare in Israel's PV market

Despite global efforts, many countries struggle to meet renewable energy targets. In 2022, Israel's renewable energy accounted for only 10% of its electricity generation despite its abundant solar resources. This study analyzes the outcomes of three tenders for photovoltaic (PV) facilities aimed at advancing national renewable energy goals. The results reveal lower production costs but increased market concentration, with a 50% reduction in the number of winning firms, consolidating around major players. While efficiency has improved, the exit of smaller, less competitive firms raises concerns about long-term dominance. Cournot oligopoly simulations predict rising concentration and market power.

Reforming Inspection of Childcare Provision: Lessons from Israel

AbstractThis study explores the impact of transitioning from structural quality to process quality in the regulation of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) for children aged birth to 3 years on the professional identity of inspectors. The research centers on a pilot program led by the Day Care Division at the Ministry of Welfare in Israel, which aimed to reform the inspection of day care facilities in the country. The methodology involves conducting 24 interviews with day care inspectors who participated in the pilot program, tracing their evolving understanding of their professional identity and their adaptation to the new regulatory model. The study's findings reveal that inspectors' professional identity comprises five key aspects: source of authority, inspection methods, superintendent's skill set, role perception, and their perception of the regulated entities. Inspectors are compelled to redefine their professional identity in response to changes in the regulatory model. In conclusion, this research underscores the intricate nature of inspectors' roles during periods of regulatory transformation. Shifting toward a process-oriented ECEC regulation necessitates the development of a new professional identity for inspectors. This shift presents them with heightened ethical dilemmas and exposes them to the risk of regulatory capture.

The Social Worker and Change: Obstacle or Opportunity?

Abstract The present article sets out to explore the relationship between the social worker’s identity and the organizational change within the Ministry of Welfare in Israel. The article builds on the observation that successful organizational change requires a good understanding of the impact of change on the identity of the employees. First, the study sets out to clarify the notion of regulation and indicates some current trends in the specialized literature regarding the regulation of social services. Next, an analysis is offered of the regulator’s role in Israel’s Ministry of Welfare, special attention being paid to a number of characteristics and challenges, such as: the regulator’s loneliness, regulatory capacity, and specialization and division (versus inclusion and expertise). A more detailed and nuanced analysis is then offered regarding the identity of the social worker, as a professional in the field of social welfare; specific attention is paid to the professional aspect, the legal-value aspect, and the organizational-institutional aspect. A concluding section brings together some of the key findings and implications of the present study.

The impacts of climate change on cropland allocation, crop production, output prices and social welfare in Israel: A structural econometric framework

We propose a model that simulates climate change impacts on crop production and food prices under partial equilibrium. Our model incorporates a system of Laspeyres price and quantity indices that link structurally estimated community-level produce supply functions to market level demand functions. The supply estimation accounts for corner solutions associated with disaggregate land use observations and is constrained to reproduce aggregate supply data. We use the model to assess climate change impacts in Israel, which protects local agriculture by import tariffs and quotas. The simulation results vary greatly when we allow prices to change as a response to supply changes, highlighting the importance of endogenizing prices in climate change simulations. The results imply that climate changes projected for Israel are expected to be beneficial to farmers, particularly due to the positive impact of the forecasted large temperature rise on field crop production. Fruit outputs are projected to decline, and reduce consumer surplus, but to a lower extent than the increase in total agricultural profits. Nearly 20% of the profit rise is attributed to farmers’ adaptation through land reallocation. Adaptation to the projected reduction in precipitation by increasing irrigation is found to be warranted from the farmers’ perspective; however, it is not beneficial to society as a whole. Abolishing import tariffs effectively transfers surpluses from producers to consumers, but the impact of this policy on social welfare is relatively modest.

Occupational Welfare in Israel: A Study of Collective Agreements and Benefits

Welfare regimes differ in how they supply social benefits such as pensions, disability allowances, and unemployment funding. In several regimes, the social partners – employee unions and employers’ associations – provide social benefits for workers. These regimes promote occupational welfare. This article aims to study the advantages and limitations of occupational welfare through the case study of Israel – a country in which the social partners promote occupational welfare by means of collective agreements. It examines the ways collective agreements – directly and indirectly – advance occupational welfare in Israel. The research includes a quantitative study of all collective agreements concluded in Israel in the period 1957-2016 and a qualitative study of Israeli collective agreements at the national level. The study shows that although Israel’s social partners lost much of their power during this period, they are still able to promote occupational welfare, and that Israeli social partners promote innovative workplace policies through collective agreements. Several occupational welfare arrangements first introduced in collective agreements were later extended through legislation or extension orders to all Israeli workers. Without collective bargaining, important occupational welfare benefits might have not been introduced. However, state legislation was needed to fix the flaws of these arrangements, including enforcement problems and lack of coverage of the self-employed. Occupational Welfare, Social Welfare, Collective Agreements, Employee Unions, the Social Partners, Pension, Disability Benefits, Minimum Wage, Israel

Economic implications of agricultural reuse of treated wastewater in Israel: A statewide long-term perspective

We develop an Israeli version of the Multi-Year Water Allocation System (MYWAS) mathematical programming model to conduct statewide, long-term analyses of three topics associated with agricultural reuse of wastewater. We find that: (1) enabling agricultural irrigation with treated wastewater significantly reduces the optimal capacity levels of seawater and brackish-water desalination over the simulated 3-decade period, and increases Israel's welfare by 3.3 billion USD in terms of present values; (2) a policy requiring desalination of treated wastewater pre-agricultural reuse, as a method to prevent long-run damage to the soil and groundwater, reduces welfare by 2.7 billion USD; hence, such a policy is warranted only if the avoided damages exceed this welfare loss; (3) desalination of treated wastewater in order to increase freshwater availability for agricultural irrigation is not optimal, since the costs overwhelm the generated agricultural benefits. We also find the results associated with these three topics to be sensitive to the natural recharge of Israel's freshwater aquifers, and to the rate at which domestic-water demand evolves due to population and income growth.

The Geography of Children's Welfare in Israel: The Role of Nationality, Religion, Socio-Economic Factors and Social Worker Availability

The study examined the relations between various characteristics of Israeli localities and three indicators of children’s welfare: rates of reports on child maltreatment to child

Labor Welfare in Israel

This article links transformations in the strength and influence of the Histadrut, the trade union federation in Israel, to changes in occupational welfare in that country. Fringe benefits and other forms of occupational welfare have traditionally played a major role in both the incomes of employees and the labor costs of employers in the Israeli labor market, and are integral and crucial elements in the welfare state. However, the extent of these benefits and the proportion of employees with access to them changed dramatically over the last three decades. During the golden age of the trade union movement (which began prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 and continued until the mid-1970s) an elaborate and comprehensive occupational welfare system was established. It provided extensive fringe benefits, access to health insurance, labor rights for employees in the primary sectors of the economy, and was based upon corporatist style agreements between the government, the trade union federation and private sector employers. Yet rapid liberalization of the Israeli economy and political upheavals, that ended Labor movement dominance in politics, led to the disintegration of the centralized corporatist labor relations system, a decline in the levels of unionization, and the weakening of the Histadrut. The result of this was extremely limited access to occupational welfare on the part of non-unionized workers, particularly those with temporary jobs in the private sector, and for migrant workers. By contrast, the occupational welfare system for organized workers in the government sector has remained largely intact despite the Histadrut's weakness, while employees in the significant hi-tech sector enjoy a wide range of employer initiated fringe benefits.

Moral Panic and Neo-Liberalism: The Case of Single Mothers on Welfare in Israel

The paper analyses a moral panic mobilized by the Israeli government, targeting single mothers who protested against a new economic plan that led to dramatic cuts in their welfare benefits. The moral panic occurred during a period of political and economic transition when Israel was moving toward a market-oriented mode of government. By incorporating issues concerning new modes of penal rationalities and practices into the analysis of the dynamics of moral panics, the paper shows that the Israeli campaign was shaped and supported by ideologies and beliefs central to the working of the political economy of neo-liberalism. The analysis shows that the moral panic was similar to other moral scenarios in its external form, but not in its internal content, which was conditioned by the wider context of neo-liberal regime and its techniques of rules and governance.

The Center for Children and Families at Risk: A Facilitating Environment

The Centers for Children and Families at Risk are family treatment settings which were established by the Ministry of Welfare in Israel, in cooperation with the Ashalim Division of the Joint Distribution Committee in Jerusalem. Their purpose was to provide an alternative option to the removal of children from their homes and to create a “home away from home” experience. A multidisciplinary staff acts as an extended family who provides the “good-enough mothering” and “holding” that is the basis of D.W. Winnicott’s idea of the “facilitating environment.” In this article, the author discusses how a special model of therapy developed from an ongoing dialogue between the staff and families who were accepted into treatment. As a result, an attempt is made to transform an ongoing cycle of deprivation and violence into a sense of feeling “lovable” and then, hopefully, “love able.”

Critical Junctures, Labor Movements and the Development of Occupational Welfare in Israel

The role of occupational welfare, and in particular that of occupational pensions, has gained growing attention in the study of welfare states in recent years. This article draws on a variety of primary and secondary data and two theoretical models, power resources and path dependency, in order to analyze the emergence of occupational welfare in the Israeli welfare state. In particular, it explores the notion of junctures and their role in path dependent policies. The article seeks to understand why the role of occupational welfare in Israel is so formidable and to examine the implications of this. Its focus is upon the crucial role that the labor movement played in the formation of this system during a critical juncture in the evolution of the Israeli welfare state. During the 1950s, the Israeli labor movement brought about the establishment of an extensive system of occupational welfare and a social security system for the elderly based primarily upon low universal state benefits and generous voluntary occupational benefits. The legacy of these systems is still very prevalent in the contemporary welfare state and has marked implications both for spending on social spending and the welfare of the elderly.

Ideological purity versus pragmatic considerations in the development of social welfare in Israel

Ideological purity versus pragmatic considerations in the development of social welfare in Israel

Socio-economic variables as alternatives to income in measuring regional economic Welfare?The Israeli case

It is quite surprising that, while data on national economic growth is published almost annually in most countries, cautious data for the measurement of regional economic welfare is rarely available. The purpose of the present study is to present a methodological disussion of the quality of variables utilized for measuring regional economic welfare over a span of time, in a situation where an “ideal” data base is lacking. The conclusions of the methodological discussion serve as an essential base for the second part of the paper, which deals with the problem of the increasing or decreasing regional inequality of economic welfare in Israel.

Child Welfare in Israel. Eliezer David Jaffe

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewChild Welfare in Israel. Eliezer David Jaffe Kermit WiltseKermit Wiltse Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Social Service Review Volume 57, Number 3Sep., 1983 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/644129 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1983 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Problems of Implementing Social Welfare Policy: Welfare and Education in Israel

This paper examines the abilities of the ministries of education and welfare in Israel to implement their policies and programs on the municipal level. Significantly, each provides services which are the primary responsibility of the national government. The focus is on the vertical administrative linkages between the national ministries, municipalities, and other bodies involved in the implementation of ministry policy. The issue to be dealt with is the degree to which these linkages help the respective ministries to implement these policies and the extent to which local authorities and others influence these policies.