A few months ago, when Prof. Momi Dahan sat down to watch “The Ethnic Demon,” Amnon Levi’s popular documentary series, he was surprised that its creator chose to emphasize the empty half of the glass. Already then, Dahan had the data from his most recent study on the economic gaps between Ashkenazi (Jews of European descent) and Sephardi (Jews of North-African and Asian descent) in Israel, which indicated that the income gap between the two groups, though still significant, had narrowed markedly over the past 15 years. “It’s not that the empty half of the glass does not exist,” he explains. “There is still a significant income gap between Ashkenazim and Sefardim, but, nevertheless, when you see such a positive development, it lends an entirely new perspective to the empty half of the glass. It is clear that if the gaps were holding steady, or broadening, it would place the empty half of the cup in a different light, but my work shows a different perspective.”
A less TV-friendly angle
“It is clear that when a television series is produced, one of the main considerations is its ratings, and, naturally, in order to get the ratings you need sharper corners, even if the reality in this case is somewhat rounder. I am speaking delicately, here. There are many studies that have shown that if you want attention, it’s best to present the empty half. People pay more attention to negative news.”
Dahan, an economist who is head of the Federmann School of Public Policy & Government at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is also a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, analyzed the income figures for Israeli households from 1979-2011 and discovered that in 2011, the net household income for households in which the father or paternal grandfather was born in Asia or in Africa was 74% of the household income for households in which the father or paternal grandfather was born in Europe or America.
These are tough figures, but Dahan’s research indicates an improvement: Until 15 years ago, the gaps stood at no less than 40%. For this reason, Dahan has no problem answering unequivocally when asked if there is still a need to debate the ethnic gaps in Israel. “I have answered everyone who has asked me this question that, very simply, so long as there is a gap, there is room for debate.”
The data in the study are based on an income survey that was conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics between 1979 and 2011 that tracks regular income from work, assets, and government assistance. Another source of data is the Central Bureau of Statistics’ Labor Force Survey, conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics, upon which the analysis of the wage gap between the two groups is based. Labor Force Surveys include data about the continents on which the respondents’ mother and father were born, as well as the respondent himself. The continent where the father was born is a key variable, used to define the ethnicity of the household, or the worker. “For some reason,” says Dahan, “the income surveys include data only on the continents where the respondent and his or her father were born, therefore, we cannot divide the population into two homogenous ethnic groups, and one of mixed ethnicity.”
The path of the current study began a decade ago. A study that was published at the time indicated that, based on the cumulative data until 1995, the education gaps between Ashkenazim and Sephardim had widened. Naturally, this was difficult information to process, particularly among those who were sure that decades after the absorption of the majority of North African and Asian Jewry, the gap would disappear completely; “The truth is, I was pretty distressed by the research, which was quoted widely in the press, and in scientific journals as well, including by some who might have less pleasant things to say about the new research, because these results do not match up with all sorts of things.”
Dahan says he decided to return to the matter a few years ago, when he came upon some data indicating a narrowing in the higher-education gap between Ashkenazim and Sephardim. “At the time, when I concluded that study, I didn’t know whether the trend would worsen, but the data about education surprised me. I said to myself, either there’s a mistake in the data, or the reality has actually changed; and then I began digging deeper and checking the education statistics more rigorously. I saw that, in fact, the reality had changed in terms of education, and then I was curious as to whether there was a similar change in terms of income, and I set out to investigate the matter. I wanted to find out whether the income gap between Ashkenazim and Sephardim had grown, shrunk, or remained the same, and then to explain the findings.”
Before he could get started, Prof. Dahan needed to cope with what was perhaps the most complicated task: defining who is Sephardi and who is Ashkenazi. It did not interest him that in Israel there are many mixed families: “because what interests me is the gap, the issue of mixed families turned out to be a relatively small problem,” he said. “Luckily, there is a very similar number of mixed families where the father is Ashkenazi and where the father is Sephardi, so they cancel each other out.”
Yet, he says, there is a problem with the question of who is Sephardi and who is Ashkenazi. “In the end, I decided to look at populations from Asia-Africa, versus populations from Europe-America. I basically tried to stay away from cultural definitions, and to stick to geographic ones, which are not variable. So there are certainly a great many people who, according to the technical definitions, are Sephardi, but if you ask them about their cultural identities, they will not necessarily define themselves as Sephardi.
You need a definition that is not subject to change, and that is why I opted to go with a geographic definition, specifically, paternal origin, and I used this criteria to compare income gaps over the course of the entire period.”
There were some issues that the study was not able to address, for example, the gap in rates of asset-ownership between the various segments of Israeli society. “There is one secret that is even more closely guarded than the nuclear secret, and that is wealth and asset inequality in Israel,” says Dahan. In most Western countries, the data on wealth and asset inequality is gathered from tax records, because there are inheritance taxes, but Israel is one of the only countries that does not have an inheritance tax. Because of this, we have no data regarding the distribution of wealth. In other countries, wealth inequality is significantly greater than income inequality, so I assume the same is true for Israel
Prof. Dahan emphasizes that though the income gap is still very much an issue, “when we look at the gaps between Sephardim and Ashkenazim, we see that many of the gaps have closed. For example, there is almost no difference today in the average number of children in families of Ashkenazi and Sephardi descent. This is something that in the ‘50s and ‘60s was thought to be a cultural issue, and that if it were to close, it would take decades - but, in historical terms, this gap closed in no time at all. By the end of the ‘70s, this gap was effectively closed. The gap in marriage age among women also disappeared, and gaps in leisure consumption and degrees of religious observance have narrowed significantly as well.
“The only area in which we did not seen this narrowing, until the mid-‘90s, was in income rates. Study after study found that the gaps between the two groups held steady. Sometimes, they found that they broadened a little, sometimes that they narrowed a little, but, overall, they held steady. The same was true for education. These are the two stubborn gaps. But, since the mid-‘90s, we see a significant narrowing of both these factors.”
In light of all this, Prof. Dahan had to explain whether the change in the trend of income inequality was an effect of time and the Israeli melting pot, or if there are other phenomena at work. “As an economist, I am drawn to the explanation that says there has been a rise in return on education worldwide,” he says. “The gaps between the educated and the uneducated widened in the Western world, but, in my opinion, paradoxically, the broadening of this gap is one of the primary causes of the narrowing of the ethnic gap.
“We must remember that in the beginning, the educational level of the Sephardim was lower, and if there is a rise in the return on education, it constitutes a greater draw for people who are less educated. It seems to me that this draw pulled the Sephardim upward. I see that the salaries of the Sephardim rose, not because there is less discrimination, but because of a rise in education.”
Another main reason for the narrowing of the gap is a rise in the status of the Sephardi woman - a rise in education levels and a rise in the rates of participation in the workforce. “This is a much greater rise than the rise in participation among Ashkenazi women. It’s phenomenal, and it indicates a deep cultural change. It is a major story that has not been fully told, and it is, from my perspective, one of the most important things in the study. The interesting thing is that it was easy to predict this based on the convergence in the marriage ages of Sephardi and Ashkenazi women.”
When asked about the influence of Shas, Dahan was unequivocal: “I think that the gap narrowed despite Shas. The main reason for the narrowing of the gap is the rise in education that is appropriate for the contemporary employment market. These are not religious studies, which we know have low economic returns. I do not think the main message of Shas is that Sephardi need to fill the universities and colleges.
Dahan refuses to speak of the ethnic divide from a personal perspective out of fear that the focus will become his personal story, and will overshadow his research. That said, he rejects the debate on the topic of the “Ashkenazification” of Sephardi Jewry and the obviation of the previous identities of the Sephardim. “Jews who came from Morocco did not want to come to a country where people speak Moroccan or Arabic, but rather a country that speaks Hebrew,” says Dahan. “My grandfather was incredibly proud that I speak Hebrew. He did not mourn over it. Therefore, the entire debate about adoption of Ashkenazi or Western culture is complete nonsense, in my opinion. This argument is always going on, and it was brought up in Amnon Levi’s program as well by people such as Prof. Yehouda Shenhav, who think in these terms, but I think that the Israeli reality is a slap in their faces.”
Dahan says that the conclusion of the study left him fairly optimistic. “In my opinion, one of important things for success in life - for an individual, for a group, and for society - is what the expectations are. If the expectations of the Sephardim are that they will not succeed and will not be educated, that affects their consciousness. On the other hand, if these facts are true, and I believe they are, there is an unusual success here. Think, for example, about the matter of the Sephardi woman - that we see that her education level rose at a faster rate than that of Ashkenazi women, and that their participation in the workforce rose at astronomical rates - why not celebrate this success and transmit it to young men and women everywhere? I would not recommend doing this if the facts were not true. The facts themselves are empowering, so why emphasize the empty half of the glass? It has an effect on the shaping of expectations and on performance.”
On this topic, Dahan makes an exception to his condition for holding the interview, and agrees to speak about himself a little: “One of the decisions I made at the beginning of my career was to use the name Momi and not the name on my ID card, Maimon. The reason I kept this name, and, of course, my family name, was the thought that when someone hears about Professor Momi Dahan, he will know that there is not only Momi Dahan’s barber shop, or Momi Dahan’s garage, but there is also a professor. I hoped that maybe someone would hear about a professor with such a name and would say to himself that he can do it too.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 24, 2013
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