Israel's Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that parents of children ages 6 to 15 will need to pay mutual child support in accordance with each parent's financial status.
Previously, fathers always paid child support to the mother - even if the children spent equal amounts of time at each parent's home, and even if the woman's salary was significantly higher than the man's.
The child support paid by divorced fathers in Israel is among the highest in the OECD, with only Swiss fathers paying more. The average payment per child is $500 (1790 NIS), and the average salary is between 8000-9000 NIS ($2,240-2,518). A father of three with joint custody may end up paying as much as 6000 NIS ($1,678) in child support, leaving himself with only 3000 NIS ($840) to live off of.
In 2013, a breakthrough ruling was achieved, in which a Tel Aviv judge ruled that a father did not have to pay child support because the children spent half their time in their father's home.