Database at the National Insurance Institute of Israel

 

Since 1981 Israel’s National Insurance Institute (NII) has paid non-means-tested benefit to parents of children up to 18 years diagnosed with ASD. In December 2013 this benefit was 2,439 shekels a month, or about 27% of average wages. Diagnosis is undertaken independently of NII by relevant health professionals according to DSM criteria. The parents of children diagnosed with ASD may apply to NII for benefit. On confirmation, benefit payments are back-dated to the date of diagnosis. Details of diagnosis criteria, the application process, and the granting of eligibility for benefit may be found in Raz et al (2014). In addition, parents of eligible children benefit from higher income tax thresholds, reduced rates paid to local authorities, and their children have access to special education and therapies. Because the economic incentive to receive these and related benefits is large, probably most (if not all) children diagnosed with ASD in Israel feature in NII’s administrative records (Raz et al 2014).

Beneficiaries aged 16 in 1981 would be 50 years old today. Unfortunately, these early data were not preserved. The earliest record in our data refer to children born in 1984, aged about 30 in 2013.  We identify all children who were eligible for benefits on the grounds of ASD in any month during January 2003 to August 2014. Of these, we selected all individuals who were at least 18 years old in December 2013.