What explains the gender pay gap in the West Bank?

Palestine exhibits increasing trends in the gender pay gap over a couple of years. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the factors that explain the gender wage gap in the West Bank, Palestine. The current study applies the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method utilizing data from the Palestinian Labor Force Survey (LFS) in 2018 collected from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS). The findings indicate that the gender pay gap is mostly explained by differences in the average place of work employment, industry, and years of schooling between males and females. However, the sector of employment, occupation, work experience, seniority, number of working hours per week, marital status, and working conditions explain little part. However, more than one-half of the gender pay gap in 2018 remained unexplained by the included observed workers’ characteristics. Probable elucidations for this part include not only the labor market sex-related discrimination but also some measurable earning-related attributes that are not available in the scope of LFS and unobserved characteristics. Finally, some important policy interventions are provided based on the obtained results.