Haredi Women in the Laborforce

Here's an interesting and optimistic piece about an American insurance company which is employing Haredi women as insurance evaluators. Since they work Israeli mornings, nighttime in the US, the company saves time; they are also working for salaries that are lower than anything comparable in the US. However, unlike many business that use English-speaking employees in India or the Philippines, these women are doing quite skilled work. I'm familiar with a number of such places, and their advantage over the Asian competition is in the skills of their staff: they don't even try to compete at the simple levels.

The whole movement was given a tremendous boost a few years ago when then-Finance Minister Netanyahu slashed the subsides of large families (code: some orthodox, most Arabs, and essentially all Haredis). There was a cacophony of squawks and shrieks about his cruelty, but it seems he was right on all parameters - this being merely one of the longer-term results. And very long-term it may prove to be, if it helps in healing some of the severe distortions that have characterized the Haredi communities in Israel these past two generations or so. (Their New York cousins never had this particular set of problems, since no American government would ever have dreamed of subsidizing them off the labor market for generations).

And note the final paragraph to see the full subversive power of this change.