'My son is in hi-tech'

For Jewish parents, law and medicine usually topped list, but not anymore.

By EHUD ZION WALDOKS
computer 88 (photo credit: )
computer 88
(photo credit: )
Jewish parents are well-known for wanting their children to work in certain professions. Law and medicine have usually topped the list, but a new challenger is climbing the ranks - hi-tech. The old standbys are still strong but hi-tech has edged out law for second place. In a survey released this week by the Mutagim Center for the BizPortal Web site and conducted among 500 Israeli Jews, medicine came in first at 22 percent, hi-tech was second with 16% and the law was third at 10%. Engineering came in fourth and teaching fifth. Politics or modeling was no one's idea of a good profession, with only 1% wishing them on their children. In a gender reversal, more parents were interested in their daughters becoming doctors (14.7%) than their sons (11.5%). Perhaps the old saw about one's daughter marrying a good Jewish doctor has turned into one's daughter becoming a good Jewish doctor. Older parents were much more interested in their children becoming doctors than younger moms and dads. Younger parents were more interested in their children becoming lawyers. Parents aged 18-24 preferred the law nearly three times as often as their compatriots aged 45-54. Overall, the law was considered a more appropriate profession for boys than for girls (6.5% to 5.8%). Are younger parents perhaps a touch more naïve than their more experienced counterparts? Two percent expressed an interest in having a politician in the family, while older parents wanted to keep politicians in the Knesset and not at the dinner table. Haredim were 15 times more likely to want their offspring to be teachers than secular parents (21% to 1.4%). Some younger parents wouldn't object to seeing their child as a model posing on giant billboards (4%), but 0% of older parents want that. The older your parents are, the more they have ideas about what you should be, the survey found. Almost a third (31.3%) of those aged 18-24 said they would let their children choose their own professions without expressing a preference. However, only 14.6% of parents above 55 were willing to do the same. There were also differences between Jerusalem residents and northern Sharon ones. More Sharon area residents wanted a doctor or model (26% and 3.8%, respectively) than their Jerusalem counterparts (18.6% and 0%). There was no margin of error given for the survey.