Obstacles to Labour Market Participation Among Arab Women in Israel

47 Pages Posted: 10 Aug 2020

See all articles by Sami Miaari

Sami Miaari

Tel-Aviv University; Economic Research Forum (ERF); Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Maha Sabbah-Karkabi

University of Haifa

Nabil Khattab

Doha Institute for Graduate Studies

Abstract

This study investigates the factors that underlay the low labour force participation rate among Palestinian-Arab women in Israel relative to Jewish women despite the high educational attainment among this group. We focus on four factors that could explain this pattern: (i) socioeconomic factors such as age and education, (ii) culture factors such as the religiosity of the individual-woman and her family, (iii) family structure and related public policies, and (iv) the early retirement of Arab women from the labour market. We find that all four of these factors affect the probability of Palestinian-Arab women participating in the labour market. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for labour market policies.

Keywords: labour market participation, Arab women, public policy, gender, nationality, religiosity, early retirement

JEL Classification: J01, J15, J13, J18, J26

Suggested Citation

Miaari, Sami and Sabbah-Karkabi, Maha and Khattab, Nabil, Obstacles to Labour Market Participation Among Arab Women in Israel. IZA Discussion Paper No. 13572, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3669501 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3669501

Sami Miaari (Contact Author)

Tel-Aviv University ( email )

School of Social and Policy Studies, Tel-Aviv Univ
Tel Aviv, 69978
Israel

Economic Research Forum (ERF) ( email )

21 Al-Sad Al-Aaly St.
(P.O. Box: 12311)
Dokki, Cairo
Egypt

Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) ( email )

Germany

Maha Sabbah-Karkabi

University of Haifa

Mount Carmel
Haifa, 31905
Israel

Nabil Khattab

Doha Institute for Graduate Studies ( email )

Al Tarfa Street
Doha, Zone 70
Qatar

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
106
Abstract Views
435
Rank
460,172
PlumX Metrics