Women's Work?

Yesterday's Ha'aretz featured a fascinating article about high-tech companies which are catering to charedi women employees. You may remember that I once wrote about a group of Mormon women in Utah who work from home fielding calls for JetBlue Airways. JetBlue's CEO calls this "homesourcing" and says it is the perfect solution for encouraging at-home motherhood (a value encouraged among the Mormons). Well, I think we have found a close Jewish version of this in Modi'in Ilit.

According to Ruti Sinai's article, Modi'in Ilit is the third fastest growing charedi community in Israel. Women, ironically, in the charedi community are highly encouraged to work since they are the family bread-winners while the men are immersed in Torah study. However, the need to work can often come into conflict with the expectation that women in the charedi community should have many children.

This seeming conflict may have been solved as several high-tech companies are moving their call-centers (the people you reach when you call customer service numbers) to Modi'in Ilit. It is the perfect part-time position for these women, and allows them to take maternity leave when they need to as the number of these employees is rocketing. The companies are sensitive to their needs, and create an all-women, all-charedi atmosphere for them right in their backyard.

One company's manager, Chavi Kleiman, said "Even though they have six children they miss less days of work than the mother of two in Tel Aviv." She also said that they never take coffee and smoking breaks. Just occassional breaks either to express milk or run home to nurse their babies.

Perhaps this is the "women's work" of the future. Until now women who wanted to both work and be at home tended to go into education or the therapies (OT, PT). Now technology call centers may be another option for women who want to (or have to) balance the needs of work and family.

Comments

[Katja]

I don't know about this, talking to friends who telecommuted from home (but maybe that's a different kind of work?), I noticed that they were highly stressed. They did not feel that they were more effective at all... but a woman who has to support a large family probably has or develops amazing time-managing skills...