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A Double Disadvantage? Immigration, Gender, and Employment Status in Israel

Un double désavantage ? Immigration, genre et situation d’emploi en Israël

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Abstract

This article examines gender differences in employment status among immigrants in Israel, and how these differences vary across origin groups. Analysis of the 1995 population census indicates that, all else being equal, immigrant women exert a negative effect on activity in the annual labor force. As time elapses, the probability of immigrant women being employed improves but remains considerably lower than that of both immigrant and native-born men. However, after a few years in the country, immigrant women do close the gap with native-born women. For employment status in the last week, being an immigrant woman has a positive effect on full-time employment. A detailed analysis reveals substantial stratification by country of birth. Thus, the patterns of employment status for immigrant groups can reflect different levels (single, double, and triple) of disadvantage or advantage for women. I attach this stratification to cultural background and social values of country of birth as well as to economic and religious considerations, not fully indexed by the census data.

Résumé

Cet article examine les différences par genre en fonction de la situation d’emploi parmi les immigrés en Israël, et la variation de ces différences en fonction du pays d’origine. L’analyse du recensement de population de 1995 indique que, toutes choses égales par ailleurs, la situation de femme immigrée est négativement associée à l’intégration dans le marché du travail. Au fur et à mesure que la durée de résidence s’allonge, la probabilité d’exercer une activité professionnelle s’élève, mais demeure considérablement plus faible que celle des hommes, qu’ils soient immigrés ou pas. Toutefois, après quelques années passées dans le pays, les femmes immigrées rejoignent le niveau d’activité des femmes nées en Israël. En ce qui concerne l’emploi au cours de la dernière semaine, la situation de femme immigrée a un effet positif sur l’exercice d’un emploi à temps plein. Une analyse détaillée révèle un stratification bien marquée par pays d’origine. Les caractéristiques de l’emploi pour les groupes d’immigrés peuvent refléter différents niveaux (simple, double, triple) d’avantage ou de désavantage pour les femmes, à relier au contexte culturel et aux valeurs sociales des pays d’origine, ainsi qu’à des dimensions économiques et religieuses qui ne peuvent être appréhendées par les données de recensement.

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Notes

  1. This argument is nicely discussed in Gurak and Kritz 2000, pp. 417–418.

  2. Our data did not permit the breakdown of last year’s immigrants by number of months in the country. This is an important factor that may influence employment characteristics.

  3. Countries/areas of origin include (in alphabetic order): Algeria, Argentina, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, India, Iran, Iraq, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Libya, Moldova, Morocco, Other Asia–Africa, Other East Europe, Other Latin America, Other former Soviet Union, Other West Europe, Poland, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Syria, The Netherlands, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, former Soviet Union (with no specification of republic of birth), Uzbekistan, Yemen.

  4. The question on occupation was administered only to respondents who worked in the last week before the census. This did not allow us to include occupation as an explanatory variable in the multinomial logistic regression. We did, however, include this variable for predicting full-time (score 1) versus part-time (score 0) employment. Results from logistic regression revealed that all else being equal, immigrant women in clerical and service jobs, as compared to professionals, are significantly more likely to work full-time with respective odds ratios of 2.484 and 2.235.

  5. The Labor Force Gender Parity Index is “the ratio of the percentage of women who are economically active to the percentage of men who are” (2004 World Development Indicators, p. 31).

  6. Regrettably, our data set does not contain any measure of religious orientation or behavior to clarify the role of this factor as a determinant of employment status.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by a grant from the Julian Simon Research Fund, School of Business Administration, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The study was carried out during the author’s sabbatical year, as a visiting scholar, at the Center for Demography and Ecology (CDE), The University of Wisconsin-Madison. An earlier version of this article was presented at the CDE seminar, January 25, 2005; at the Population Association of America Annual Meeting, March 29–April 1, 2006 in Los Angeles (poster); at the IZA 3rd Migration Meeting, May 20–21, 2006 in Bonn; and at the European Population Conference, June 21–24, 2006 in Liverpool. I gratefully acknowledge the help of Benny Anderman in computer programming and data analysis. The comments on the article received from the editors and two anonymous referees of EJP were especially helpful. Responsibility for the contents of this article rests solely with the author.

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  1. Division of Jewish Demography and Statistics, The A. Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 91905, Israel

    Uzi Rebhun

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Rebhun, U. A Double Disadvantage? Immigration, Gender, and Employment Status in Israel. Eur J Population 24, 87–113 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-007-9137-3

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