RAMALLAH, Thursday, March 07, 2019 (WAFA) – Marking International Women‘s Day, data by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said today that the gap in the participation rate in the labor force and average daily wage between women and men in Palestine remain high.
Despite the increase in participation of women in the labor force in previous years, still it is very low compared to men, where women participation rate was 21% of the total women at work age in 2018, compared to 10% in 2001, while the men participation rate was 72% in 2018, it said.
There was also a gap in the average daily wages between men and women (the average daily wage for women was 92 Israeli shekels compared to 129 shekels for men [$1 = 3.6 shekels]).
The unemployment rate among participated women in the labor force was 51% compared to 25% for men. Unemployment rate among women with 13 schooling years and above reached 54% of women in this group, said the PCBS.
Data of Labor Force Survey 2018 showed that the percentage of women-headed households in Palestine was 11% (12% in the West Bank and 9% in Gaza Strip).
The percentage of poverty among individuals in households headed by women in Gaza Strip was 54%, while it was 19% in the West Bank. This is based on the main results of living standards in Palestine (expenditure, consumption, and poverty), 2017.
Women‘s participation in public life remained ed compared with men, where 82% of judges were men, compared to 18% for women, while 73% of registered lawyers were men, compared to 27% for women and 80% of prosecutors were men, compared to 20% for women.
Women represented 25% of registered engineers with the Union of Engineers while men represented 75%. On the other hand, in 2017, 31% of members of students councils in the West Bank universities were females, compared to 69% for males.
In the public sector, women represented 43% of the employees in civil public sector, compared to 57% for men. In the civil public sector, women represented 12% of the general directors and higher, compared to 88% for men in the same category.
The population in Palestine estimated at 4.98 million in mid-2019, including 2.53 million males (51%) and 2.45 million females (49%).
M.K.
