Page 235 - Contributed Paper Session (CPS) - Volume 1

CPS1284 Rabeh M.
the cognitive skills are likely to obtain equal opportunities with non-refugees
to access into these jobs.
The industry dummy shows that the lowest salaries were in the
transportation, storage & communication sector for both refugees and non-
refugees, but the negative wage gap in the first percentile changed to positive
sign at the top end of the wage distribution with reference to the same basic
occupational category. The same shift was experienced in the commerce,
hotels and restaurants sector. For example, in the first percentile the wage for
non-refugee and refugee workers in the transportation, storage &
communication sector is respectively 89.8% and 101.1% less than that in the
base category (elementary occupations), but it becomes significantly positive
in the top end of the wage distribution for nonrefugees and refugees with
respectively 24.1% and 11.7% more than the basic occupational category. This
may reflect the very high growth in the salaries in the communication sector
in Palestine which reflects the vast development and fast growth of
productivity in the last decade (Morrar et al. 2019). The highest wages was
found in the construction sector for both refugees and non-refugees. While
we found no wage gap in the first quantile between the workers in the
construction sectors and the base sector (elementary occupations), the gap
expanded for the second and third percentile of the wage distribution. This is
because the low wages in the construction sector is for whom working in West
Bank and Gaza, while medium and high salaries basically for the Palestinian
workers in the construction sector in Israel. The difference in magnitude
between the discrimination and composition effects in the industry dummy is
narrowing at the end of the wage distribution with being 10.3% for the
composition effect and 14.8% for the discrimination one.
In terms of occupation, workers were penalized the lowest wages when
employed in services and as vendors in markets. This is for both refugees and
non-refugees. For refugees, the wage gap between workers in services and
who work legislators and senior managers expand along the wage distribution.
This means that the refugees are rewarded in an increasing rate when working
in high-skilled jobs which based on competences and experience of the
workers. This is not the case in low-skilled job which many not require high
skills and competences. The jobs with highest wages for non-refugees are for
workers in craft and related trades mainly in the median and upper part of the
wage distribution. This supports the previous literature in Palestine (Hilala and
McGrath, 2016 & Morrar et al. 2019) about the importance of vocational
education and life-long learning in building human capital and high income
generation for youth and vocational education students. For example, Hilala
and McGrath (2016) found that graduates in vocational education and training
in Palestine were half as likely to be unemployed than their peers, which
reflected in higher personal and household income. Those graduates also were

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