As mothers marched with strollers in Tel Aviv to protest the price of raising children, MK Dalia Itzik (Kadima) proposed a bill on Thursday that would provide free education and daycare for children up to age five.
In the bill, which is also supported by Chairman of the Knesset Labor, Welfare and Health Committee chairman MK Haim Katz (Likud), Itzik explains that the price of state-subsidized daycare is NIS 2,300 per month, private daycare centers cost NIS 4,000 or more, and the number of spaces in subsidized centers is limited.Itzik wrote: "The high price of daycare is such that many young parents, and especially young mothers, have to leave their jobs to stay home and raise their children." "This situation raises poverty rates, harms women's integration in the workplace, and is a central factor in wearing out the middle classes," she added.
