There is a common belief, especially among those who hate
chareidim, that there is a correlation between the level of
child support allowances and the size of families, and the
more allowances are reduced the more the number of children
per family will shrink — as if people had children in
order to get the allowance.
In Ha'aretz some years ago reporter R. Sinai brought
several facts about the connection between the monetary
amount of the allowances and the size of families. According
to the figures she presents the proportion of large families
in the State of Israel has been in constant decline despite
the increase in allowances up to a few years ago.
In the 1980s large families constituted 7 percent of all
families with children while today that figure has dropped to
4.3 percent. The proportion of families with seven or more
children is only 2 percent of the total number of families
with children, and the number of families with more than 10
children is tiny.
Dr. Johnny Gal of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
maintains that according to studies around the world there is
no correlation between the amount of allowances and the size
of the families. He says the allowances bring many families
above the poverty line and reducing them merely exacerbates
poverty without shrinking families.
"If we judge specifically based on the Jews' historical
experience," says Professor Moshe Lisk, also of Hebrew
University, "among the traditional Jews of Eastern Europe
there was a demographic explosion during the 19th century
that eventually led to mass emigration. Although they were
very poor there was no tie between their financial status and
the size of families and . . . reducing allowances will [not]
alter this situation here."
And how does the State of Israel rank in providing aid to
large families when compared to other Western nations? Is it
true the State of Israel is unusually lavish in subsidizing
these families?
A comparative survey conducted by Dr. Gal and by Dr. Ben
Aryeh, also of Hebrew University, showed that compared to
other industrialized nations Israel's commitments were fairly
limited. The survey, done even before the wave of decrees
over the past three years, found that the support for
children in other countries is far more generous and included
incentives for mothers to go to work, housing assistance,
etc. The concrete figures from the survey debunk the myth
promulgated by anti-religious officials that Israel far
exceeds other Western nations in the assistance it extends to
large families.
Dr. Yonah Sachelkans, a demographer at Hebrew University,
also determined there is no correlation between the size of
families and the level of government support. "Many studies
have been done around the world and almost all of them showed
the effect is marginal," he says.
Dr. Lisk says the demographic question highlights the
contradiction contained in remarks made by Netanyahu and many
others who share his views. "On one hand they speak of Jewish
values, of the need to settle Eretz Yisroel, of the
importance of the continuation of Am Yisroel, while on
the other hand they battle against large families. This
doesn't make sense."
But it does make sense. A lot of sense. As MK Rabbi Avrohom
Ravitz said, the battle is against the chareidim: "The State
is not opposed to children. It is opposed to chareidi
children. A large percentage of the population agrees with
this attitude."
Government officials are not battling against large families
in general, but rather against large chareidi families (and
maybe large Israeli Arab families as well). In order to
reduce the effect of chareidi growth on the country's
demographic balance, hundreds of thousands of non-Jews were
brought from the former Soviet Union. Also to undermine the
ability of chareidi families to subsist, draconian decrees
that have nothing to do with economics were issued. From a
purely economic perspective impairing chareidi families'
economic viability will merely boomerang, lowering state
revenue and in the long run will be of no use to the
economy.
As part of its economic plan the previous government
allocated millions to implement a "special national program
to encourage aliya and absorption." Thus the government
combated internal aliya, which is certain and effective,
while preparing a plan that may not in the end bring very
many Jews to Eretz Yisroel.
