Abstract
Beginning with the period right after the Oslo accords and ending with data from 2017, the paper examines over three decades of employment trends and how various political and economic impacts have reshaped gendered employment in Palestine. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) began collecting labor force survey data in 1995 and this paper uses these data to examine how gendered patterns of employment have shifted over time, with a focus not only on the role of Israeli and Palestinian Authority policies, but also at how globalization has impacted these trends. Because of the unique ways that the Palestinian economy is inserted into the global economy, employment trends (particularly shifting occupations as well as unemployment/occupational segregation/wages differences) differ by time, geographic location and class. Given the extensive and consistent data now available, it is possible to paint a fairly comprehensive picture of shifting employment trends and compare patterns in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with each other, as well as with surrounding communities (particularly Jordan and to a lesser degree Egypt), to better understand what is both unique and typical about the gendering of Palestinian employment and how trends have shifted over time. The data suggest that while in some contexts economic and political factors have reinforced traditional gender norms, in others, the opposite is the case.
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