Haredi labor market integration policy in a neoliberal environment

Bibliographic Data

ID12534745
AuthorsLee Cahaner (Oranim Academic College of Education, corresponding author), Asaf Malchi (The ultra-orthodox in Israel program, The Israel Democracy Institute Jerusalem, Israel, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume40
Issue1
Pages137-159
Publication date2022-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Israeli History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1353-1042 • E-ISSN: 1744-0548
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13531042.2022.2150376
OpenAlexW4315640847
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited12

Over the past several decades, welfare states across the developed Western world, including Israel, have adopted differential employment policies for disadvantaged marginal populations that perform poorly in the labor market and are underrepresented in it. The intensive and rapid shift from Keynesian welfare policy to a more economical and efficient neoliberal approach sparked great turbulence in Israel's labor market, leaving broad swaths of the country's marginal populations outside of the capitalistic post-scarcity economy. In this article, we examine third-sector initiatives and governmental employment policies aimed at integrating and advancing Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) in the Israeli labor market. We also explore the tension between welfare, with its associated benefits and governmental assistance mechanisms, and the neoliberal approach, with its reliance on economic efficiency tests.The article looks at how the Haredi sector's labor market integration process has evolved. We aim to understand parallel developments between the processes outlined by the state and the Haredi community's socioeconomic needs under a neoliberal regime that prizes competition, achievement, and materialism – a regime in which social institutions are being reshaped, adjusted, and disciplined in accordance with market-oriented principles. We will examine the forces working behind the scenes to integrate Haredim in the economy and in society as a whole – the top-down policy forces striving to increase Israeli economic output, and the bottom-up internal-civic forces that want to create normative and economically feasible alternatives to the Haredi “society of learners” that developed under welfare-state auspices.The article seeks to answer three main questions in light of the aforementioned processes: How did the shift from a Keynesian welfare state to state workfare contribute to Haredi integration in the Israeli employment market? Who were the key political-social-economic actors and forces that shaped the process of Haredi labor market integration? And finally: how has neoliberal employment policy affected the Haredi community on the gender, spatial (center-periphery), class, and community planes, i.e., has this policy approach helped strengthen the Haredi middle class, and if so, how

Disadvantaged · Economic growth · Economics · Factor market · Labour economics · Market economy · Neoliberalism (international relations · Nonmarket forces · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Scarcity · Welfare · Welfare state · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Jewish Identity and Society · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

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