by the 1940s, al-birwa had three olive oil presses, a mosque, a church, and approximately 300 houses. in addition to the ottoman-era boys' school, an elementary school for girls was established in 1943. by this time, many of the inhabitants lost all or part of their lands due to debts, and concurrently, men and women from al-birwa increasingly worked in public projects, such as road construction and the haifa oil refinery, or in british military installations, to compensate for lost income. however, the main source of income remained agriculture, and the village's principal crops were olives, wheat, barley, corn, sesame, and watermelons. in the 1944/45, residents of the village owned a total of 600 cattle, 3,000 goats and 1,000 chickens. women, particularly young women from smaller landowning families, participated alongside the men of their family in working the land, while many women from landless families drew income as seasonal workers on other village residents' lands. there were general, gender-based divisions of labor, with women collecting well water, raising livestock, curdling milk, transporting goods to markets in acre and collecting herbs; men typically plowed and sowed seeds, and both men and women picked olives and harvested crops.