Ethnicity, ethnic conflict and the meaning of work among jews and arabs in Israel

This exploratory research examines the Meaning of Work (MOW) of 1201 Jews and 286 Arabs, (or Palestinians that have Israeli citizenship), who are working in the Israeli labor market. It is a unique study since there are very few studies on cultural values and no studies on work values, which compare between different ethnic groups who have been living in the same country/ land for more than fifty years. While the work values among Jews in Israel have been studied for several decades, there has been no attempt to study work values among the Israeli Arabs and it is the first time that the MOW of Israeli Arabs is examined and compared to Jews' MOW. Between the two ethnic groups who have different cultures, there is alienation, mistrust and social tension that stems mainly from the escalating ethnic conflict (the regional Israeli-Arab/Palestinian conflict). The findings reveal significant differences in most of the MOW core dimensions. Arabs' work centrality is significantly higher than Jews' work centrality, while Jews economic and intrinsic orientations are higher than that of Arabs. There were no differences between Jews and Arabs regarding interpersonal orientation. The demographic variables explained very low percentage of the variance related to the MOW indices among Jews and Arabs. The MOW differences between Arabs and Jews can be explained by the cultural differences (individualistic Jewish culture vs. collectivistic Arab culture), by high degree of segregation, by the employment discrimination and primarily by the Israeli- Arab/Palestinian conflict.