Current Sociology

Please welcome our Sociologist of the Month for November 2021, Anat Herbst-Debby (Gender Studies Program, Bar Ilan University, Israel). Her article for Current Sociology, Palestinian mothers in Israel: Can a welfare-to-work program enhance their social capital? is Free Access this month.

Anat Herbst-Debby

Could you please tell us about yourself? How did you come to your field of study?

A. Herbst-Debby: Throughout my childhood and adolescence, and in all my work as a researcher, the issue of socio-economic inequality between vulnerable groups and stronger groups in society has interested me. I did my doctorate in the Bar-Ilan Gender Studies Program, where the issue of inequality of mothers and women from vulnerable groups was of great interest to me, and for many years since I have been researching motherhood.

Moreover, I specialize in a number of research fields: gender aspects of welfare policies; gender aspects of the social security system; pensions; families undergoing change; motherhood; divorce. In the past decade, my scientific work has focused on inequality within three main areas: welfare-to-work programs and mothers’ employment; family changes, divorce and inequality; adolescent employment and pension rights.

What prompted you to research the area of your article, “Palestinian mothers in Israel: Can a welfare-to-work program enhance their social capital?”?

A. Herbst-Debby: The study is part of a larger research project involving in-depth interviews, held between November 2011 and July 2015, of 20 trainers and 105 mothers (62 single, 43 married) while they were participating in the Woman of Valor WTW program. The program is directed at mothers who seek to integrate into the labor force and those already working who wish to expand their employment. The three-year program serves as a neighborhood institution with ties to businesses, non-profit organizations, and government agencies; and thus brokers resources for its participants. Interviewees were Israeli-Palestinians, immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia, and Mizrachi Jews (Jews originally from Asia and Africa and their descendants), all of whom belong to vulnerable groups in Israeli society, the most vulnerable and excluded of all being Israeli-Palestinian mothers.

This article focuses on the 30 Israeli-Palestinian mothers, most of whom live in poverty, and the three Israeli-Palestinian trainers. In addition to their vulnerable ethnic status, most reside in Israel’s periphery, characterized by less accessible public transportation and higher unemployment than in Israel’s center.

My colleagues, Dr. Maha Sabbah-Karkabi and Dr. Tal Meler, who have been researching Israeli-Palestinian society from a gender perspective for many years, joined my study, and together we tried to learn from those mothers whether the program worked for them as a source of creating and extending social capital.

What do you see as the key findings of your article?

A. Herbst-Debby: Our main findings exposed how Palestinian women formed ties and enhanced their social capital to meet their needs as a marginalized ethnic group in Israel and to bargain with the patriarchy that defines their market and domestic options.

What are the wider social implications of your research in the current social climate? How do you think things will change in the future?

A. Herbst-Debby: Social capital flows more easily in this group due to their gender, class, and ethnic homogeneity, facilitating a process of bounded solidarity. We hope that these kinds of programs will be able to give tools to those working with these populations to advance them toward social and economic mobilization.