Incorporation without Integration: Palestinian Citizens in Israel's Labour Market

Abstract

The Palestinian citizens of Israel have been concentrating in blue-collar, less well paid, and insecure jobs. This is viewed as a result of two processes: their gradual incorporation into the state/Jewish labour market, and at the same time, the reproduction of an elaborate division of labour within a split labour market. Unlike the bulk of the existing research, which explains the disadvantaged position of these Palestinians by variables relating to the process of stratification, such as education, age, and residential area, it is argued that this subject is better explained by variables relating to the political position of the Palestinian minority in Israel, and the structural changes in the economy and the labour market. This analysis takes into account the dominant role that the state has assumed in managing the economy and regulating the labour market, and the subjugation of the economy to what is ideologically conceived as representing the `common good' of the Jewish majority. The implications of the existence of a split labour market for the Palestinian minority and the Jewish majority is also discussed.

Ethnic Health Inequalities in Unequal Societies: Morbidity Gaps Between Palestinians and Jews in Israel

“…When considering inequalities across the whole of Israeli society, however, the most prominent ethnic and social divide is not between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, but rather between the country's Jewish majority and Palestinian minority. This divide has been shown as highly significant in structuring the educational and occupational opportunities of the minority group (Kraus and Yonay 2000;Mazawi 1999;Sa'di 1995;Shavit 1990). In fact, the Palestinian minority in Israel occupies the lowest positions in the society's social, economic, and political hierarchies.…”

Public Preferences for Redistributive Policies in Israel

“…The socioeconomic status of the Arab citizens has been attributed to an array of social and structural factors. These include limited parental resources, traditional gender roles and higher fertility rates, as well as regional residential concentration, labor market segmentation, poor quality of public schools, limited access to welfare assistance, and labor market discrimination that has historically limited opportunities for upward mobility (Ghanem 2001;Sa'di 1995;Semyonov and Cohen 1990;Al-Haj 1995;Lewin-Epstein and Semyonov, 1994;Cohen and Haberfeld 1998;Okun and Friedlander 2005). While both Arabs and Jews benefit from policy measures to reduce poverty, the contribution of these policies to poverty reduction is larger for Jewish families (Endeweld et al 2008: 13).…”

Region, Locality Characteristics, High School Tracking and Equality in Access to Educational Credentials: the case of Palestinian Arab communities in Israel

“…Whereas state investment and development schemes target mainly Jewish localities, in Galilee and the southern periphery, Arab localities, with some exceptions, remain as a matter of rule outside the bounds of a significant scheme which aims to develop their local private and public sector opportunities (Shavit, 1992, p. 149). Thus, state policies and primary regional differences further mediate broader inequalities, serving as active means for the reproduction of unequal opportunity structures along regional, ethnico-national and socio-economic lines (Falah, 1989(Falah, , 1993Sa'di, 1995).…”