By Jonathan Cook - Nazareth
Palestine Chronicle
"Israel’s finance minister was accused last week of trying to deflect attention from discriminatory policies keeping many of the country’s Arab families in poverty by blaming their economic troubles on what he described as Arab society’s opposition to women working.
A recent report from Israel’s National Insurance Institute showed that half of all Arab families in Israel are classified as poor compared with just 14 per cent of Jewish families.....
But researchers and women’s groups pointed out that employment of Arab women in Israel is lower than almost anywhere else in the Arab world, including such employment blackspots for women as Saudi Arabia and Oman.
“Most Arab women want to work, including a large number of female graduates, but the government has refused to tackle the many and severe obstacles that have been put in their way,” said Sawsan Shukha of Women Against Violence, a Nazareth-based organisation......
A study by the Bank of Israel published this month suggested additional reasons for the high levels of poverty among Arab families. It showed that Arab men were typically forced into retirement in their early 40s, at least a decade before Israel’s Jewish workers and workers in Europe and the United States.
The researchers attributed Arab men’s early unemployment to the fact that most are restricted to physically demanding labouring jobs, and because they are rapidly being replaced by Third World workers who are paid less than the minimum wage."
Palestine Chronicle
"Israel’s finance minister was accused last week of trying to deflect attention from discriminatory policies keeping many of the country’s Arab families in poverty by blaming their economic troubles on what he described as Arab society’s opposition to women working.
A recent report from Israel’s National Insurance Institute showed that half of all Arab families in Israel are classified as poor compared with just 14 per cent of Jewish families.....
But researchers and women’s groups pointed out that employment of Arab women in Israel is lower than almost anywhere else in the Arab world, including such employment blackspots for women as Saudi Arabia and Oman.
“Most Arab women want to work, including a large number of female graduates, but the government has refused to tackle the many and severe obstacles that have been put in their way,” said Sawsan Shukha of Women Against Violence, a Nazareth-based organisation......
A study by the Bank of Israel published this month suggested additional reasons for the high levels of poverty among Arab families. It showed that Arab men were typically forced into retirement in their early 40s, at least a decade before Israel’s Jewish workers and workers in Europe and the United States.
The researchers attributed Arab men’s early unemployment to the fact that most are restricted to physically demanding labouring jobs, and because they are rapidly being replaced by Third World workers who are paid less than the minimum wage."
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