Discrimination against Arab women
The large number of unemployed Arabs, and in particular of unemployed Arab women, should trouble every Israeli citizen.
Haaretz
Editorial | Oct.12, 2012 | 4:01 AM
The rate of workforce participation
among Arab women is only 28 percent, compared to 80 percent for nonreligious
Jewish women. The barriers preventing Arab women from looking for work are
many, but one of the main ones is their exclusion from the job market. That is
what emerges from an analysis published this week by Prof. Eran Yashiv of the Taub Center
for Social Policy Studies, based on new unemployment data generated by changes
in how the Central Bureau of Statistics conducts its employment survey.
Yashiv's analysis showed that
unemployment in the Arab community is much higher than previously thought. Some
18 percent of Arab women and 11 percent of Arab men are unemployed. The
unemployment rate for Arab men is twice that of Jewish men, and that of Arab
women is three times that of Jewish women. All in all, Arabs account for 30
percent of Israel's
unemployed - some 50 percent higher than their proportion in the general
population.
It is not surprising that only 28
percent of Arab women even attempt to find work if 18 percent won't find it in
any case. The low probability of finding a job creates a barrier that causes
many women to give up in advance. The significance of the fact that so many
women do not find work is that even women with high motivation aren't managing
to integrate into the Israeli workforce.
It's possible the problem is
related to the limited supply of jobs in the periphery, where most Arab towns
are located. But it also seems to be related to the fact that employers are not
overly happy to employ them. Or to put it more bluntly, the figures reveal the
full extent of discrimination against Arabs in general, and Arab women in
particular.
The large number of unemployed
Arabs, and in particular of unemployed Arab women, should trouble every Israeli
citizen. These harsh figures show that the state must act forcefully to combat
discrimination against Arabs in the work place and to encourage companies to
hire them. The government should start by setting an example: Today, only 8
percent of government employees are Arabs. That is even less than the goal the
state set for itself - 10 percent - and well below their share in the
population.


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