Gaza: Urban Women Agripreneurship in the Gaza Strip, Facts & Challenges

The aim of this fact sheet is to highlight the realities and challenges of urban women’s entrepreneurial work in the agriculture sector

GUPAP
February 2021

Excerpt:

Restricted employment prospects and women’s childrearing roles often affect women’s access to productive and financial services. As a result, the participation of women in the labor force is 20%, compared with 70% of men. The gender gap in unemployment rate continues to grow: in 2018, the unemployment rate for men was 26.4% compared to 53.7% for women.

The average daily wage of Palestinian women is 95 shekels, constituting about 70% of the average daily wage of men (135.5 shekels). Business ownership is also closely linked to gender, with just 3.5% of women in the 15-64 age group setting up their own companies, compared with 16% of men in Palestine who are of working age. In Palestine, there are around 7,000 officially licensed businesses that are owned by women.

In Gaza, official jobs among women is 7.9% lower than in the West Bank, where 25.3% of women are self-employed, working for others, farmers, or workers.

One of the priorities of the National Cross-Sectorial Strategy for the Promotion of Gender Equality (2017-2022) is progress towards women’s equal access to economic resources, including land and productive resources, inheritance, financial services and funding based on national laws.

Fact sheet.