When Shaindy Babad, an ultra-Orthodox American immigrant, arrived in Israel in 1994, she decided that she wanted to work in a high-tech company. At the time, it was still not commonly accepted for ultra-Orthodox women in Israel to enter the workforce. “I worked as a secretary, and my salary was 11.9 shekels [about $3] per hour, which was then the minimum wage,” she recalls. “I spent 12 years working for the company, and ended up a manager.”
While the general employment rate of Israeli women has stood at a steady 75% for the past few years, the employment rate of ultra-Orthodox women has been growing consistently. In the second quarter of 2014, for instance, it reached 79.5%, surpassing the overall number of women employed nationally, according to figures provided by the Central Bureau of Statistics. Yet Babad believes that these figures might be a little misleading: “Even people who work for two hours a week are defined as employed, and it goes without saying that those people are not earning a livelihood. As far as I am concerned, an ultra-Orthodox woman who has a part-time job is not part of the workforce.”