Inequality across demographic groups is high and growing across the Arab region. This has implications for intergenerational mobility, poverty traps for large fractions of population, social polarization, tension and even political instability. This paper evaluates the differentials in household expenditures across rural/urban areas, female/male-headed households, non-educated/educated-headed households and non-employed/employedheaded households, in eleven Household Income and Expenditure surveys from five Arab countries: Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Sudan and Tunisia. Unconditional quantile regressions are used to analyze the differentials across the population distribution and to decompose them by source. Household characteristics and returns to them that are responsible for the expenditure differentials are identified. Systematic trends over time are also evaluated