Unlike in other countries with ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, for example Belgium, United Kingdom and the United States, in Israel the majority of adult ultra-Orthodox Jewish men remain outside of the labour force and are engage in fulltime religious study. Public policy supports this lifestyle by means of exemptions from military service, stipends for religious students and recently increased child allowances (OECD, 2009a, 2010a). Income inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, increased from 0.25 in 1975 to 0.33 in 2003 (with strong growth since then until 2009, is likely to have increased further) (OECD, 2010).