The second half of the twentieth century has seen a dramatic increase in female labour force participation in both developing and industrialised societies. Consequently, a growing number of social scientists have turned attention to changes in the occupational distributions and status of economically active women (Cho and Koo 1983; Boserup 1970; Presser and Kishor 1991). In the present paper we aim to contribute to the growing literature on this topic by studying changes over time in the relative occupational status of Arab women in Israel.