Ethnicity and female labour market participation: a new look at the Palestinian enclave in Israel

The enclave model and the cultural model have often been used by sociologists to explain the patterns of participation of minority women in western labour markets. While the cultural models explain, in general, the mechanisms that restrict women's employment, the enclave models, by contrast, explain the mechanisms that facilitate women's labour market participation. Using data from the 1995 Israeli population census and assuming these theoretical models, this paper aims to examine the labour market participation pattern of three groups of women in Israel: the Muslim-Arabs, the Christian-Arabs and the Druze-Arabs. The results indicate that the participation of Arab women in the Israeli labour market is determined primarily by their ethnic and religious affiliation, education (particularly post-secondary and academic education), marital status and age. By contrast, the ethnic enclave was found to exert a differential influence: its influence on the labour market participation of Muslim women was positive, while for Christian women it exerted a negative influence. The effects of labour market opportunities on female labour force participation are also discussed.