Bank of Israel Research Department The Effect of Public Transit on Employment in Israel's Arab Society* Arnon Barak 2 Discussion Paper 2019.03 March 2019 _________________ Bank of Israel: www.boi.org.il 1 Arnon Barak, Bank of Israel, Research Department. Email:
[email protected] Tel. 972-2-6552659 * Thanks to Nitsa Kasir, Naomi Hausman, Adi Brender, Eyal Argov, Shay Tsur, Noam Zussman, Ari Kutai, Alon Eizenberg, Sharon Malki, Sivan Hendel and participants of the Research Department seminar at the Bank of Israel for their helpful comments. Appreciation is extended to Noa Aviram and Sarit Levy of the Ministry of Transport and Road Safety for their collaboration, and special thanks to Eran Ravid and Dan Rader from “Adalya” for generating the public transportation data. Additional thanks are extended to Central Bureau of Statistics employees—Gilat Galmidi, Orly Furman, and Yifat Klopstock for preparing the database, and to David Gordon for the ongoing assistance in working in the Research Room. Finally, thanks to Research Assistants Gal Amedi and Adam Rosenthal for dedicated and meticulous data processing. Any views expressed in the Discussion Paper Series are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Bank of Israel :2118 – 891 #“ – -– º “ Research Department, Bank of Israel. POB 780, 91007 Jerusalem, Israel The Effect of Public Transit on Employment in Israel’s Arab Society Arnon Barak Abstract The Arab population is characterized by low employment rates, particularly among women, due to cultural characteristics and structural barriers. A common argument is that one of these barriers is the lack of transit access to places of employment, due to the low level of public transit service in the Arab localities.