In addition to the many problems that will afflict members of bereaved families after the vicious attack by Hamas terrorists on Israel, the loss of a parent or other close relative can lower their educational achievements in the future. This is the conclusion predicted just released by researchers at Jerusalem’s Taub Center for Social Policy Studies.
A death in the family suffered by young children is related to their later achievements in school and beyond – and social and economic disparities are liable to emerge as a result of the loss.
The findings of the study – which was carried out by Dr. Yael Navon, Dr. Carmel Blank, Prof. Yossi Shavit, and Prof. John Gal – show that children who experience loss in early childhood (ages one to six) have a lower likelihood of qualifying for a matriculation (bagrut) certificate than other children. In addition, they found that losing a parent or a sibling have a similar effect on a young child, notwithstanding the more central role of a parent in early childhood.
Work on this research began in mid-2022 with the intent to publish it towards the end of this year. In a chilling coincidence, the attack on October 7 on towns in the South and the war that began in its wake, made this research more relevant than ever.
It was carried out as part of the Taub Center’s Initiative on Early Childhood Development and Inequality, supported by the Beracha Foundation, the Bernard van Leer Foundation, and Yad Hanadiv.
How does losing family members harm you academically?
The analysis focused on qualifying for a bagrut certificate because it constitutes a condition for acceptance into academic studies in Israel. Therefore, it can be assumed that a lower likelihood of eligibility for a bagrut certificate will, in turn, reduce the chance of attaining an academic degree, as well as the chance of finding a high-paying job in the future. In the long term, social and economic disparities are liable to emerge between individuals who experience such a loss in early childhood and their peers.
The research is based on a database of more than a million native Israelis born between 1985 and 1998. Almost two percent of them lost a parent or sibling in early childhood. In other words, the loss of a parent of sibling in early childhood is not as rare as one might have thought.
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The study found that the likelihood of a child who experienced a death in his nuclear family qualifying for a bagrut certificate is 26% lower than that of their peers. It also didn’t find any significant difference between the death of a parent and the death of a sibling in terms of the relationship between the loss and the chance of qualifying for a bagrut certificate. In both cases – the loss of a parent and the loss of a sibling – a negative association was found with the likelihood of qualifying for a bagrut certificate. Therefore, the hypothesis that the effect is similar in both cases cannot be rejected, the team declared.
This finding is surprising, given the centrality of a parent in a child’s life, especially during early childhood, and also given the major trauma experienced by a family upon the loss of a parent, an event that deprives the child of both economic resources and the parent’s time and availability, attention and guidance.
The current policy in Israel with respect to a death in the family differentiates among families according to the circumstances of the death. The findings of the new Taub study show that, in Israel, the social welfare system’s policies give a higher priority to financial help to families who have lost a relative serving in the Israel Defense Forces compared to those who have lost a civilian. The system also provides far more assistance following the loss of a parent than following the loss of a sibling.
The main help to a family that has lost one of its members while in the military or in a terrorist attack is provided to the spouse of the deceased or to their parents. The assistance is provided by regional assistance centers and the centers for marriage and family therapy and is almost entirely financed by the Welfare and Social Affairs Ministry. In places where there is no such center, the family is referred to private therapists underpaid for by the ministry. Those who have lost a sibling in these circumstances are eligible for assistance like subsidies for tuition in higher education and psychological support at various levels.
Civilian bereavement is dealt with by the National Insurance Institute (NII) and is divided into three groups, according to the circumstances of the death. A bereaved family that has lost a parent or child due to a traffic accident, a homicide or suicide, or as a result of an illness or accident other than a road accident is not eligible for assistance from the regional centers and essentially is not eligible for therapy of this type.
These families can obtain therapy in the centers for marriage and family therapy, but they don’t get any discount, and the service is subject to constraints of manpower and resources. The therapy provided to these families also differentiates been a sibling and a parent, mostly with respect to the services provided through the Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs.
The guiding principle in these cases is that the death of a parent reduces the household’s income, and since the state is the guarantor of social security, it has the responsibility to assist in maintaining a reasonable standard of living for families that have lost a parent and consequently suffered a loss in income. This financial assistance is provided to the spouse of the deceased and its amount is determined by the number of children in the family under the age of 18. The main payments provided in these cases are survivor insurance, work-injury compensation, and guaranteed income supplements. There are also a number of one-time grants provided to children who have lost one of their parents, such as an education grant and a bar/bat mitzvah grant, they wrote.
In recent years, parents of a deceased child have become eligible for the funds deposited on the child’s behalf in the Saving for Every Child program, in which part of the universal child allowance is deducted and saved in a special account from birth until age 18 or 21. However, this is a one-time relatively small amount and its sum decreases the younger the age of the child at the time of death. In contrast, the social security system does not in general provide financial assistance for the death of a sibling.
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According to Dr. Carmel Blank, one of the study’s researchers: “This research shows that any death in the nuclear family is related to long-term negative effects on academic achievements and possibly also to other results later in life.”
Prof. John Gal, another researcher on the study, noted that the findings “in this groundbreaking study show the tremendous importance of establishing a welfare-service system that will provide for the emotional and material needs for every family that has experienced the loss of a parent or child regardless of the circumstances of the loss and will offer that support to any family member in need.”
The death of a parent or sibling in childhood, and particularly in early childhood, while not common is also not as rare as one might think, and for someone who has experienced such a loss, it is a life-changing event, which is what makes this research important, Gal said.
“Nonetheless, even in war-torn Israel, in which death, bereavement, and loss have been investigated on a large scale, there has been little statistical quantitative research on bereavement and its implications and in particular civilian bereavement until now. Our research examines the effect of the death of a parent or sibling during early childhood,” Gal concluded. “Since the support provided by the State to families that have experienced the loss of a parent is very different from that provided for the death of a sibling, this type of research can also have implications for future policy.”