PALESTINIAN SOCIETY - Fafo

Demographics: The size and composition of a population is
regarded as crucial background infonnation for a study of living
conditions in a country. Population growth as weU as gender, age,
religious, ethnic and farnily composition constitute important dimensions
in this respect.
. Health: Often regarded as one of the most fundamental aspects of
living conditions, good he�th is a prerequisite for well-being, happiness
and general daily satisfaction.
Education: Education is seen as acritical resource enabling an
individual to become afuU citizen in amodem,literate society. Crucial
to personal development and self-esteem, education is also viewedas
personal resource with the greatest potential impact on social mobility
within a society.
Work, income and consumption: Participation in the work
force, and the income secured through it, is often decisive for selfesteem,
social contact, a sense ofbelonging as weU as the individual' s
or household's econornic weU-being.
Housing: There are no standard nonns as to what constitutes good
housing, but a dwelling is expected to provide for the reasonable
cornfort, privacy and protection of the household which resides within
it. The dwelling is of ten an object of considerable emotional attachments
since it can act as a physical symbol of the farnily and its linkage
to the wider community. 6
In addition to these core social indicators, level of living studies
rnight also explore use of leisure time, social contact and sense of
influence, perceptions of social conflict, access to political resources
as weU as religious attitudes. The exact combination ofindicators will,
of course, vary according to the specific requirements of the study.
The Gaza, West Bank
and Arab Jerusalem survey
This level ofliving conditions study ofPalestinians is unique not only
in the comprehensive nature of the statistical findings it presents.
AdditionaUy, it is the only level of living conditions study ever
conducted among a people living under occupation. The implications
of this have a fundamental impact on the major conceptual prernise
underlying such a study. The capacity of an individual to execute
control and to exercise meaningful choice over his daily life is in many
respects simply incompatible with the fact of occupation. However,
this is not a study of the occupation, nor indeed are the effects of
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