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Ethnic Stratification in Israel

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The International Handbook of the Demography of Race and Ethnicity

Part of the book series: International Handbooks of Population ((IHOP,volume 4))

Abstract

In this chapter we review major trends that shaped the population composition of Israeli society and its system of ethnic stratification. We focus on the historical circumstances associated with the establishment of the state and the ways through which migration flows to Israel and the absorption of immigrants into society have formed socio-economic disparities between population sub-groups. More specifically, we argue that the flows of immigrants arriving from a wide variety of countries at different periods have created the current system of ethnic stratification in which distinct geo-cultural ethnic groups are differentiated according to their socio-economic attributes. When doing so we also examine the unique social and economic position of the Arab minority in Israeli society.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    It is important to note in this regard that the Hebrew term for Jewish immigration, “Aliya”, means “going upward” which has positive connotations (Almog 2000).

  2. 2.

    Unfortunately we do not have reliable data for this group. Therefore we cannot present valid statistical information on labor migrants.

  3. 3.

    The sample numbers are too small to include Ethiopians as a distinct category in the analysis.

  4. 4.

    There are also very small groups (a few hundreds at most) of non-Arabs natives, such as Adygs people and Samaritans.

  5. 5.

    The converting of the country specific occupation code into ISEI done with conversion table supplied by the Israeli CBS and a syntax supplied by H.B Ganzeboom (http://home.fsw.vu.nl/~ganzeboom/pisa/).

  6. 6.

    Unfortunately, the CBS does not separate Ethiopians from other African origin Jews in the Income Survey. Therefore, data regarding earnings of Ethiopian immigrants are not available. We present the descriptive findings on Ethiopians (without earnings) for very small sample.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Labor Studies, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Eyal Bar-Haim PhD

  2. The Department of Sociology and the Department of Labor Studies, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Moshe Semyonov PhD

  3. Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Moshe Semyonov PhD

Authors
  1. Eyal Bar-Haim PhD
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  2. Moshe Semyonov PhD
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Correspondence to Eyal Bar-Haim PhD .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Public Policy and Department of Demography, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, USA

    Rogelio Sáenz

  2. Loyola University Chicago Dept. Sociology, Chicago, Illinois, USA

    David G. Embrick

  3. Dept of Sociology and Population Research Centre, The Univ. of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA

    Néstor P. Rodríguez

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Bar-Haim, E., Semyonov, M. (2015). Ethnic Stratification in Israel. In: Sáenz, R., Embrick, D., Rodríguez, N. (eds) The International Handbook of the Demography of Race and Ethnicity. International Handbooks of Population, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8891-8_16

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