The Midgam Institute conducted a survey for the Population and Immigration Authority in partnership with CIMI, the Center for International Migration and Integration, of permit holders who do not make use of their permits to employ foreign domestic caregivers. In Israel, approximately 77,000 people have valid permits to employ foreign caregivers. Of these, approximately 20,000 do not take advantage of them.
In an effort to understand why these permits, which are valid for four years, are not used, we conducted a survey of permit holders who are believed not to have used the permits granted to them. Altogether, 804 respondents participated in the survey, which Migdam conducted by telephone in October and November 2021.
Currently, the great majority of holders of unused permits do actually employ a caregiver – some of the caregivers are Israeli, and some are foreign workers who are not employed according to the conditions of the permit; the proportion is even higher in the periphery. The survey revealed several reasons why the respondents do not use their permits to employ migrant caregivers, among them: too expensive, fear of letting a stranger into the home, preference for an Israeli, a sense that they do not need 24-hour care, there is not enough room in the home.
Among those who have employed a foreign worker in the past, but no longer do so, despite having a permit, the reasons for not making use of it mainly had to do with social and cultural gaps, bad experiences in the past, etc. The survey is an important professional basis for the work of an inter-ministerial team established under the director of the Foreign Workers Administration at the Population and Immigration Authority, Inbal Mashash.
