Re-negotiating social reproduction, work and gender roles in occupied Palestine

Abstract

This article uncovers the crisis of social reproduction in Occupied Palestine in the context of severe economic and political turmoil by specifically highlighting the ways in which impacts have been felt differently by men and women. It does so by considering the interactions of production and reproduction. The article confirms that, as a result of economic hardship, women, particularly married women, are increasingly participating in the formal and informal labour market. These women have been forced to renegotiate their domestic and caring responsibilities alongside paid work, within a context of very limited state or private sector provision of care services. While time-use survey findings suggest little change in men and women’s time-use between 1999/2000 and 2012/13 in general, qualitative interviews provide a more nuanced picture. Furthermore, the narrative that responsibility for managing care of children and elderly relatives as well as domestic work lies solely with the wife/ mother is near universal. Respondents also did not voice demands for greater investment in child and elder care services by private firms or by the state, suggesting a strong individualisation of responsibility for social reproduction in Occupied Palestine today. What remains to be seen is a) how representative these findings are for other groups, particularly poorer, rural families in Palestine and b) what the longer-term consequences of these changes might bring for societal gender norms in Palestine and in other contexts.