to work, i.e. both the younger and the more aged. This is substantiated by education statistics, which reveal significantly lower enrolment rates amongst ex-Gaza men outside
Jerash aged 16 to 24 (Table 20, p. 55). Furthermore, as we will briefly return to below, child
labour, albeit far from common, is more widespread amongst ex-Gazans outside Jerash
camp.
Figure 19 Current enrolment of men aged 15-24 by ex-Gaza status and five-year age groups. Percentage of the
enrolled (n=20,523).
Other Palestinian refugees
20-24 years
Other ex-Gazans
Ex-Gazans, Jerash
15-19 years
0
20
40
60
80
Per cent 100
When compared to ex-Gaza men in other camps, a higher share of older-generation exGaza men in Jerash report being unable to work for health reasons, whereas the major
difference between ex-Gazans outside Jerash camp and other Palestinian refugees is that
the latter have a higher proportion of retired. This hints at general differences between
the three population groups in terms of the areas of the labour market they occupy: citizen Palestinian refugees have better access to the formal labour market, including in the
public sector, which entitles people to retirement benefits, whereas the local labour market accessible to the ex-Gaza population in Jerash and other camps tends to be physically
demanding, e.g. agriculture, construction and factory work, which requires good physical
health and thus also tends to push people out of the labour force at a younger age.
A final explanation for the lower male labour force participation rate is more technical
and related to the survey method and the activities it captures. As we shall return to below, the much more irregular and seasonal character of employment of ex-Gazans in Jerash camp would yield a lower labour force participation rate as our data use the past week
as the reference period. The impact of seasonality on the rates, however, is presumably
more applicable to women than men, as a much higher proportion of the former (15%)
than the latter (2%) report seasonal work. Furthermore, a consequence of the short reference period is that the prevalence of employment amongst children is under-reported
since many children — like women — tend to work at irregular intervals, seasonally and
oftentimes restricted to school holidays. We return to work among children in a separate
sub-section below.
The female labour force
Very few women across camps — either ex-Gazan or not — are economically active (Figure
20); however, this pattern seems to be slightly more pronounced among ex-Gazans, regardless of location. Among ex-Gazans in Jerash, 8% of women (aged 15 and above) are
members of the labour force, which is in line with ex-Gaza women in other camps.
Amongst other female camp refugees, however, the labour force participation rate is over
9%73. While this suggests something of a consistent difference between ex-Gazans and
others, it is important to note that there is a much greater variation in female labour force
73
These figures are considerably below the national female labour force participation rate, which
stood at approx. 15% in 2011 (Tiltnes and Zhang, 2013).
‘Just getting by’
Ex-Gazans in Jerash and other refugee camps in Jordan
61
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