Institutions for daycare were established by women’s organizations before the establishment of the State. They were conceived as a social and philanthropic service offered to poor mothers and to working mothers.

The women’s organizations themselves subsidized this service. Similarly to the institutions of education and health developed at the time, daycare services were sectorial-political. The institutions opened by the Union of working Mothers (Na’amat of today) were linked to the Histadrut. WIZO institutions were linked to the Progressive Party and to the General Zionists, and Emunah institutions were linked to HaPoel HaMizrahi. With the establishment of the state, daycare institutions served an important role with regard to immigrants, in accordance with the philanthropic/social/political stance, which characterized “the absorption of immigration” at the time. However, while the Israel government nationalized educational institutions at an early stage, and increasingly brought the health system under its responsibility and control, it did not do so with regard to the system of early childhood education. Moreover, after many years during which the intervention of party politics in daycare was not apparent, in recent years the entrance of the political party Shas into the daycare system has intensified the politicization of this system. This takes place with government financing, so that despite a unified subsidy policy, the cost to the parents as well as the level of education given to children in the various daycare institutions vary greatly.

Since 1973 Israel subsidizes public daycare services for the children of working mothers through the Ministry of Labor and Welfare. The explicit goal of this support is to encourage women to go to work. For many years, the Israeli system of daycare has been a source of pride both in Israel and abroad and was seen as an exemplar of how a government should treat working mothers.

In actuality fewer than one third of the children of working mothers in Israel are educated in the public daycare institutions subsidized by the government. Looking back on 25 years during which this service has been in existence, it appears that despite official statements about the importance of women’s work, none of the Israeli governments, and none of the ministers who have headed the Ministry of Labor and Welfare, intended to expand government subsidies for daycare. No government has attempted to make this service accessible to all the children of working mothers, in spite of the continuous rise in women’s rates of employment. This implies a low level of government commitment to the actual advancement of women.

Major Conclusions:

In the years 1990-1996 the number of Working women rose from 670,000 to 939,000, a change of 44%. At the same time, the rate of participation of women in the labor market rose from 41% to 45.6%. From 1990 until 1998 the number of children in public daycare rose from 59,000 to 72,000, an addition of only 22% (12,000 of them the children of poor families in which many mothers are not employed).

The 72,000 children who were in government-subsidized daycare institutions in 1998 constitute only 31% of all children aged 0-4 years whose mothers are employed. Of the 60,000 children of working mothers, 35% receive no subsidy and only 40% receive a highly subsidy level.

67% of the children of Jewish working mothers and 84% of the children of Arab working mothers found no place in the public daycare services supported by the government.

The yearly budget of the public daycare institutions recognized by the Ministry of Labor and Welfare is about one billion NIS. The government subsidy budget for these institutions in 1998 was about 300 million NIS, since the ministry subsidizes only about one third of the children of working mothers. Therefore, the total expenditure of working mothers for all the various services, including private daycare, is about three times the yearly budget of the public daycare services—i.e. about 3 billion NIS Working mothers receive no tax exemption for childcare expenses.

There is a rapid rise in daycare and kindergarten services operated by Shas, which offer parents significant discounts. Such discounts are subsidized by indirect government budgets. These daycare institutions compete successfully with those of the women’s organizations, which charge parents the official government rate.

In spite of the fact that there is a law, which requires government supervision of daycare services, there are no regulations requiring its application. There is no supervision and no licensing requirement for private daycare services, in which two-thirds of the children of working mothers are found.