Event – CGS Seminar Series – The Political Economy of Marriage in a segregated society. Palestinians in Israel
The Political Economy of Marriage in a segregated society. Palestinians in Israel
3 March 2016
4 PM, 449, SOAS
This study focuses on the link between education and the chances of the Palestinian women in Israel to marry a partner with similar level of education. Most of the theoretical discussion focus on structural changes and on shifts in the desirable characteristics of a marriage partner. But most of the existing theoretical literature does not refer to situations where significant changes in education level exist with traditional patriarchal values. Based on data from three population censuses in 1983, 1995 and 2008, the homogamy pattern among the educated Arab women has not become the dominant pattern over time. The minor change in homogamous marriages among educated women tells that they face a “marriage squeeze”. But they succeed to capitalize their education to avoid remaining single and increase their chances for marriage in compare with less educated women. In other words, they `forced` to change their preferences in the mating selection for structural and social factors.
Maha Karkabi-Sabbah is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Gender Studies, SOAS, University of London. She is also an associate researcher at Dirasat – The Arab Center for Law and Policy. Her current research project examines relations between the changing marriage patterns of the Palestinian women in Israel and the gender roles in the family. Karkabi-Sabbah completed her Ph.D. in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University. She studied the relations between the dramatic change in the educational attainment of the Palestinian women in Israel and their marriage patterns. She contributed a chapter on the book Arab Women in Israel: Current Status and Future Trends (published in Hebrew). Her current works concentrated on family, gender, inequality, and Palestinian Society in Israel. She has received several awards and grants for her research, among them the Post-doctoral Scholar Award of The Israel Science Foundation (ISF), and of The Council for Higher Education in Israel (VTAT) year 2015-2016.
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