Based on a qualitative survey of 15 men between 24 and 75 years old living in the Bourj el-Baraneh Camp on the outskirts of Beirut conducted by researchers Samih Eloubeidi & Prof. Tina Kemplin Reuter in 2021, the latter reported that:
“The perceptions of job satisfaction and impact of employment on standard of living were mostly consistent among study participants. A majority of the participants responded with ‘I disagree’ and ‘I strongly disagree’ for questions asked about contentment with their work situation and impact on quality of life, with some variations across different occupations and work situation inside or outside the camp. People working in lower-paying, menial jobs inside the camp expressed a higher rate of dissatisfaction with their circumstances both with regards to financial security and standard of living. Most of those who expressed that their jobs were not enough to maintain an acceptable standard of living were store owners or self-employed within the confines of the camp, such as carpenters and street vendors. In addition to general shortcomings of menial occupations such as low pay and long work hours, participants cited two main reasons for the inability to attain an adequate standard of living: first, they experience high levels of competition within the camp because many Palestinian refugees are concentrated in these types of occupations. Second and related, most of them only maintain a very limited client base because they are only able to service other Palestinian refugees inside the camp. This impacts not only Palestinians’ current situation and standard of living, but also future prospects. As one participant, a store owner, put it: ‘I sent my daughter to America to finish her studies and to work because there was no future for her here in Lebanon. But my son is still living here with me, and he has dreams he will never be able to accomplish’.
[...]The most interesting discovery are the differences we found in perceptions of people who work inside the camp versus outside the camp. All of those who worked outside the camp affirmed medium to high levels satisfaction with their job, standard of living, and financial security, even if working in menial positions like goods distribution or as crowd controllers and security personnel. In their interviews, they explained that these jobs provide enough for the participants and their families. Unlike their counterparts inside the camp, they expressed relatively high levels of job satisfaction with their jobs.
[...]We attribute this finding to a number of reasons. First, according to participants, Palestinians receive higher pay levels outside the camp, so even though they are not paid well, they earn comparatively more than other Palestinians who work inside the camp. Second, some of refugees’ dissatisfaction with their new jobs in the host country is due to occupational skidding, namely the inability to find jobs that match their skills and qualifications. This is not possible for Palestinian refugees currently living in Lebanon because most of them never had the opportunity to pursue higher-level occupation due to aforementioned employment restrictions or inability to receive the education required to carry out a non-menial profession. Third, the interviews showed that any form of employment is considered positive and seen as a success. This is especially true for Palestinians working outside the camp who enjoy both higher pay and higher status even if they work in low-level positions.
[…]Questions 2 and 3 focused on the desire to have access to more sophisticated jobs and feelings of humiliation being stuck in menial jobs. Despite their overall contentment with their job situation, almost all of the participants responded with ‘strongly agree’ to the question asking whether they felt demeaned by the fact that they cannot access higher paying and more sophisticated jobs, regardless of whether or not their current occupations allow them to be financially stable. In this regard, the participants confirmed what is stated in the literature, namely that restricted employment access negatively impacts refugees’ psychological capital, emotional well-being, and perceived self-worth. Only two participants, the crowd controller and the supermarket worker, answered Question 3 with ‘disagree’. Both noted in their interviews that Palestinian refugees are oppressed and treated unfairly in the employment sector and thus, it should follow that they would feel belittled by not being allowed to work in a number of higher-level jobs. However, for them personally, they felt not demeaned by not having access to these higher-level occupations.
Based on these responses, it is apparent again that it is not necessarily menial occupations by themselves that make people feel oppressed or demeaned, but rather conditions pertaining to a particular work situation, such as limited access to resources or discriminatory practices, and restrictions to certain types of higher-level jobs and education. This again illustrates the extent to which the plight of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon is different from the plight of refugees elsewhere. The type of occupation (low level vs. high level) is not a good predictor for emotional and mental well-being, but it is the specific circumstances of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon that determine their outlook on life.”
(Source: Samih Eloubeidi & Tina Kempin Reuter/ The International Journal of Human Rights, “Restricting access to employment as a human rights violation: a case study of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon”, 11 April 2022, pp. 7-10)