Poverty, Education and Employment in the Arab-Bedouin Society: A Comparative View

This paper examines the socio-economic situation of the Arab-Bedouin population in the Negev, comparing it to that of the general Arab population in Israel. Poverty incidence in the last decade increased gradually. In 2004, the rate of poor individuals was 52%, nearly two thirds of which were persistently poor. By virtue of a unique database of the GS we can learn for the first time about the dire situation among Arab-Bedouin in the villages not recognized by the Israeli government. Poverty incidence was nearly 80% in 2004, and its severity was about 7 times higher than that prevailing in the secular Jewish society. We discuss the Arabs’ access to public infrastructure and its effect on education and poverty, including the indirect effect through women’s education on the family’s fertility decision. Infrastructure includes public transportation, electricity systems, water and sewage, garbage disposal services, public health and education. Similarly to international poverty research, our findings show that personal and family traits, such as education, age, family size, employment and occupation of the head of the household, as well as the number of income earners in the family are important determinants of an Arab family’s probability to live in poverty. In the area of education, a salient process of improvement was found in rates of student enrollment over different generations, especially among women. Gaps in enrollment rates between men and women were reduced in favor of women. In the area of infrastructure we found a significant discrimination in the households’ access. The Bedouin’ access to infrastructure, especially in non-recognized villages, is so low that it forms a significant barrier to women’s participation in the labor force, thus reducing the number of income earners in the household. The deficient access to infrastructure was also found to have an adverse effect toward the completion of studies in schools and thus indirectly on the mothers’ childbirth decisions. This impediment to investment in human capital has moderated the leverage of positive influence that the education of women could have had on poverty. An additional finding is that among a large number of Arab academics, employment does not suit their skills, probably as a result of discrimination and segregation in the labor market. Combined and intense government intervention in infrastructure is expected to yield a high social return and to interrupt the vicious circle of poverty.