Palestinian Women: Unemployment and Lifelong Learning

With an unemployment rate of 44.7% for women in Palestine, a significant percentage of Palestinian women live with harsh economic conditions. This high rate of unemployment does not correspond with the education and potential of Palestinian women. In fact, today a majority of students in Palestinian colleges and universities are women. Along with greater economic opportunities, there is a growing recognition of the need for programs that empower and equip Palestinian women through lifelong learning that will prepare them for a better future

The economic situation in Palestine continues to be dismal due mainly to restrictions on movement of goods and people and the overall difficult environment of the Israeli Occupation together with limited capacity on the part of the Palestinian Authority. According to the World Bank, the Palestinian economy fell into recession in the first quarter of 2014 after sustaining an average of 8% economic growth in 2007 and 2011, and although an economic recovery was underway for it was estimated to have expanded by approximately 4% in 2016, such growth was mainly due to transitory factors and therefore is not sustainable, and as a result it is not enough to improve living standards (Source: The World Bank, Palestine’s Economic Outlook – April 2017). Poverty remains endemic in almost all Palestinian towns and areas where livelihoods are increasingly precarious

Using International Labor Organization (ILO) standards, the unemployment rates are staggeringly high, which currently stand at 18.2% in the West Bank (Source: the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 2016. Press Release on the Results of the Labour Force Survey in Palestine, 2016). The statistics for Palestinian women are even more grim as the latest results show that the unemployment rate for females in Palestine is 44.7% compared with 22.2% for males. What is even more disturbing is that the highest unemployment rates among women are those who completed 13 years of schooling and more, which stands at 50.6%. Such rates are in contradiction to the general norm of female education correlating positively with work, which is not the case in Palestine for while secondary school enrollment among females is high, participation in the labor market remains low.

High unemployment among women is also associated with low income that translates itself into grave consequences including the fact that women constitute among the most disadvantaged groups, economically speaking, living in vulnerable communities in the West Bank. It is well documented that many of the poorest of families are those that are headed by women. An increase in single households is evident in the Palestinian context, where women are the one with the sole responsibility to provide for their families as their husbands are either dead, imprisoned by the Israeli army or have emigrated to seek better opportunities but are unable to send remittances home. At the same time, cultural and social norms continue to challenge women’s mobility and working outside the home.

Findings of needs assessment carried out on the women beneficiaries of Diyar Consortium corroborate employment statistics and confirm that women, especially young women, suffer from particularly high unemployment rates. The most important reasons they give for unemployment are lack of employability and entrepreneurship training and lifelong learning programs that foster innovation and creativity, limited number of job opportunities in private and public sector and lack of access to markets and to business and entrepreneurship development services. As such, women’s economic opportunities remain severely restricted and they are not able to capitalize on promising economic innovations and new job opportunities, despite the significant growth potential in a number of economic fields including social enterprises. Not only this, but experiencing low productivity, not being integrated into the labor market and not sharing equally the resources devalues the women’s sense of achievement and self-worth and curtails drastically their involvement in their communities, and as such their rights and status.

Such grave statistics reveal that Palestinian women are at risk, particularly women between the ages of 21 to 40 who have completed at least 13 years or more of schooling (i.e. at least high school graduates). This particular segment bears a huge burden for women in a traditional society as Palestine are expected to get married soon after completing their education, and then afterwards to carry on responsibilities including childbearing, childrearing and tending to other family members. As such, this particular age group becomes all at once almost invisible to the labor market and economy; they simply are overwhelmed. What happens afterwards, however, is that once the children grow and go to school, most of these women want then to return to work and/or start exploring as first timers the labor market. Yet, they lack the competencies to compete for the world changes very fast and along with it the required skills, and therefore they cannot find access to economic opportunities.

However, the unemployment and dire economic situation of the Palestinian women is not at odds with the overall general societal practices, perceptions and attitudes towards the role of females, for Palestinian women continue to suffer from the denial of their basic rights within their own society, aside from and exacerbated by the Israeli occupation practices that solidify the reactionary and traditional views of women and their roles. Practicing violence, including sexual harassment and domestic abuse, as well as committing femicide against women under the cloak of ’honor’ continue and is even on the rise with very little concrete judicial actions that holds accountable the perpetrators. In terms of their political participation and representation, the number of female leaders in different capacities, particularly in decision making processes and positions, remain very low as access to the public sphere continues to be limited and restricted to only very few women.

There are few existing initiatives, which are mostly nongovernmental, that seek to enhance women’s economic opportunities through different types of capacity building activities or help create incubators and other types of start-ups as there are existing funds that support what could be otherwise an extremely profitable activity. Yet, these efforts are time-bound and respond to specific challenges with a narrow, limited framework that does not serve or empower women holistically or for the long run for they focus on enhancing only their technical skills and not also their behavioral/life competences (such as communication, analytical ability, problem solving, etc) and professional competencies (such as business environment, industry standards, negotiation, people management, etc). They are also more focused on traditional sectors that present a decent source of income; however, it does not correspond well with the future market changes and/or limitations and so we witness, almost always, that at the first challenge encountered, many of these women entrepreneurs are unable to continue with their economic journey. They also do not integrate gender within their training curriculum so for the most part the trainings are not gender sensitive even though they are applied to women. This is why what is needed, and what our work aims at, is a comprehensive, gender-sensitive, long-term strategy as part of lifelong learning, with a vibrant and dynamic framework and training that seeks to enhance women’s competencies on all levels: behavioral, functional (technical) and professional.

Aside from a clear, comprehensive strategy and a well-developed structure, in our work at Diyar, we are keen on promoting the idea of lifelong learning in relation to women. Lifelong learning is education, and education is a right, and as such lifelong learning to enhance women’s economic opportunities is a right that women should and will gain in society. The challenge lies in that unlike other women in other contexts who organize themselves, rise and demand bigger roles to play when they experience similar challenging conditions, women in Palestine do not do so, including calling for a greater share and equal distribution of resources and wealth. Perhaps partly what separates the women in other contexts from the Palestinian women is that their actions, that is in other contexts’ women, stem from deep convictions that their participation is essential and necessary for the overall welfare of society; that it is their right and obligation to be involved as active, good citizens. This is not the case in Palestine despite having one of the worst conditions in the world in relation to employment and economy. The women are in need of the proper skills, the understanding and the vision that guide them to believing that they are capable of changing their status quo and that it is their right to do so. Hence, lifelong learning aims at empowering women in ways that they can then creatively advocate for their issues and rights, beginning with the fact that their education and training is a right and not charity.

Therefore, there is a need for an immediate action to create economic opportunities for women and support employment promotion through innovative, quality, gender-sensitive lifelong learning; spaces to apply their newly-acquired competencies such as internships, community service and job fairs; and new and alternative powerful Palestinian women role models. It is very important to note that as women’s economic opportunities are enhanced, their circumstances fundamentally and positively change and eventual emancipation and empowerment is achieved. Also, the human capital development of women would not only promote income and employment generation possibilities for the women, it would also promote economic sustainability for Palestine in general, similar to many other countries who have gone through similar experiences and are now considered among the top economies of the world.