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Main Barriers to Employment of Arab Women in Israel

>> Click here to read the full Policy Paper

The participation rate of Arab women in the Israeli labor market has been steadily increasing in recent decades, yet it remains low compared to Jewish women and Arab men. Many of them are employed in low-paying professions, such as welfare, education, health, caregiving, and house cleaning, often under exploitative employment conditions, including part-time jobs, job insecurity, and inadequate enforcement of their rights.

This policy paper reviews the barriers faced by Arab women that prevent their entry and integration into the Israeli labor market.

Structural and Political Barriers: Countless studies indicate that Arab society suffers from structural and institutional discrimination in terms of the education system, geographic distance from employment centers, and a low level of employment-supporting infrastructure. One of the main manifestations of this long-standing discrimination is deliberate exclusion or selective integration into the labor market, which has resulted in continued economic and social underdevelopment of Arab localities.

Lack of Adequate Public Transportation: There is a broad consensus in academic and professional literature, both governmental and non-governmental studies and even State Comptroller reports, that the lack of adequate public transportation in Arab localities is a major barrier to the participation of Arab women in the labor market and to the realization of the economic potential of the Arab population as a whole.

Lack of Childcare Centers: Another major barrier to the proper integration of Arab women into the labor market is the lack of daycare centers for children under the age of three. Academic and professional literature are of one mind about the need to remove this barrier and increase the availability of daycare facilities for children and infants as an employment-supporting tool for Arab women.

Zulat has drafted three legislative proposals aimed at increasing the participation rate of Arab women in the labor market, two of them dealing with public transportation in Arab communities and a third bill addressing the issue of daycare facilities:

• Amend the Traffic Regulations to require the Ministry of Transportation to contemplate equitability factors and how to advance equality in public transportation when approving and budgeting for infrastructure and services; add a new clause empowering a local authority to revoke at any time the license of a bus service, both intercity and inter-community, if it fails to promote equal quality, availability, and accessibility of public transportation.

• Establish in the Traffic Ordinance the obligation to appoint a council for the promotion of equality in public transportation, to be composed of representatives of the public, relevant government ministries, the Federation of Local Authorities, the Authority for Economic Development of Minority Sectors, and the Organization of Regional Councils. The council will act as an advisory body to the Minister of Transportation on matters related to promoting equality in public transportation, focusing on the quality, availability, and accessibility of services in terms of free movement, employment, and reduced social, economic, and gender gaps. It will also serve as a collaborative and consultative body that will accept opinions from civil society organizations in order to assess the suitability of public transportation services for different populations, such as women, minorities, the elderly, and people with disabilities. It will also consult with residents, local authorities, and other stakeholders, and will submit recommendations for promoting equality in public transportation at the local and regional levels. The bill also proposes that the minister in change submit an annual report to the Knesset Economic Committee presenting the steps taken to promote equality in public transportation.

• Amend the Law on Supervision Daycare Centers for Toddlers to require the minister in charge to submit an annual report to the Knesset’s Education, Culture, and Sports Committee detailing the licensing and supervisory measures taken in connection with subsidies, quality, availability, and accessibility of daycare facilities for toddlers. This reporting mechanism would enable better oversight of the implementation of equality within and between communities concerning daycare services, thereby improving the realization of the rights of Arab women in Israel.

This policy paper is based on a comprehensive report on the main barriers to the employment of Arab women in Israel drafted for Zulat for Equality and Human Rights by Attorney Shirin Batshon. Click here to read the full report.

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Dr. Maha Sabbah Karkabi

 

Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Tel Aviv University (2015), a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Gender Studies, SOAS, University of London (2015-2016), a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Sociology at Tel Aviv University (2016-2017), and a postdoctoral fellowship Ph.D. at the Humphrey Institute for Social Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (2018-2020).
Dr. Maha Karbahi’s areas of interest focus on the connection between social change, family behavior, and gender inequality in societies in the process of change and specifically in Palestinian Arab society in Israel. Her research draws attention to the study of family life and employment, using a combined “ethnic lens” and “gender lens” and paying attention to the perspective of Palestinian Arab women, a group characterized by intersections between multiple marginal locations, which over the years has remained hidden from the research eye. Dr. Karkabi-Sabah’s research is published in professional journals and chapters in scientific books that are considered pioneers in family research, work, and gender equality.

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Prof. Frances Raday

Professor Emeritus in the Lieberman Chair in Labor Law, in the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University and serves as a full professor in the College of Management’s academic track, where she also serves as chair of the graduate program and as honorary president of the Concord Center for International Law Absorption. Radai was a member of a working group of the UN Human Rights Council on discrimination against women. In addition, she is a prominent and feminist human rights activist.

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Dr. Rawia Aburabia 

Faculty member of Sapir Academic College’s School of Law, received her PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research deals with the interface between law, gender, minorities, and human rights. Has published in leading journals on the subject of the matrimonial laws pertaining to Muslim women in Israel. Her book Under the Law, Outside Justice: Polygamy, Gendered Citizenship, and Colonialism in Israeli Law is expected to be published as part of the Gender Series of Kibbutz Meuhad Publishing House.

Dr. Aburabia has extensive experience in international human rights and public law. She has worked as a jurist for the Association for Civil Right and has been invited as a specialist to address such international forums as the United Nations and the European Parliament on the subject of indigenous communities and minority rights. She has interned with Human Rights Watch in Washington DC, and has been a member of the executive board of Amnesty International. In 2018, she was selected by the magazine Globes as one of the 40 most promising young persons in Israel under the age of 40.

 

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Ron Kessler

With over two decades of experience in the field of digital content, Ron has participated in numerous political and social campaigns. He helped run the digital activity of senior public officials, and worked in various NGOs. Ron is a fundamentally optimistic man, who believes that Israel can be changed and so can people. Lives in Tel Aviv.