Excluded Generation: The Growing Challenges of Labor Market Insertion for Egyptian Youth (original) (raw)

Despite its recent economic development, Egypt’s employment inequalities among gender and different age cohorts are still an unresolved issue. In this work we apply a Multilevel Generalized Linear Mixed Model to the Egyptian Labor Market Panel Survey 2006 (ELMPS 2006) and 2012 (ELMPS 2012). By exploiting the hierarchical structure of the survey data, we investigate how the interplay between individual characteristics and regional context affects Egyptians’ individual probability of being unemployed. Moreover, we attempt to identify if and how these same characteristics have changed between 2006 and 2012 as a consequence of the major changes that re-shaped Egyptian demographics, labor market structure and young cohorts’ educational achievements.

This Policy Perspective argues that active labor market policies, such as public employment schemes, wage subsidies, job search assistance, and skills training have not been effective in improving the quantity or quality of employment for youth in the Middle East and North Africa region and will likely not be very effective in the future. Instead, improving the business climate for small firms, particularly by reducing the regulatory burdens of operation and formalization, can help create employment and improve job quality. Policies that create safe, accessible, and acceptable jobs for young women also play an important role in ensuring successful employment transitions for youth.

Can declining employment opportunities for women reverse the fertility transition? This paper presents new evidence that the demographic transition has not just stalled, but in fact reversed in Egypt. After falling for decades, fertility rates are increasing. The drivers of rising fertility rates are examined, with a particular focus on the role of declining public sector employment opportunities for women. By using unique data with detailed fertility and employment histories, the effects of public sector employment opportunities on women’s fertility are estimated. Estimates are calculated by examining the effect of public sector employment on the spacing and occurrence of births using discrete-time hazard models, the results of which are then used to simulate total fertility rates. The potential endogeneity of employment is addressed by incorporating woman-specific fixed effects, incorporating local employment opportunities rather than women’s own employment, and using local employment opportunities as an instrument. Results indicate that the decrease in public sector employment, which is particularly appealing to women, has contributed to the rise in fertility.

This paper examines patterns of school choice in Egypt from primary through higher education. We use a mixed-methods approach that combines survey data with qualitative in-depth interviews to explore schooling decisions. Some private and religious schools exist, but we find that in most geographic areas school “choice” at the pre-university level is effectively limited to public schools—despite their inadequate quality. Although there has not been much change in the attendance of private schools at the pre-university level, we find that attendance of private higher education institutions has increased over time. Azhari (Islamic religious) school attendance at the pre-university level has increased over time as well, possibly indicating a reaction to the low quality of public schools. Overall, when choices are available, families still tend to prefer public schools due to their low cost, though private and religious schools are generally perceived to be of higher quality.

There is potential for measurement problems in both retrospective and panel microdata. In this paper, we compare results on basic indicators related to labor markets and their dynamics from retrospective and panel survey data in Egypt, in order to determine the conditions under which results are similar or different. Specifically, we (1) assess the consistency of reporting of time-invariant characteristics in different waves of the panel, (2) compare the retrospective and panel data results on past labor market statuses, (3) assess the consistency of estimates of labor market transition rates across two specific dates by comparing panel and retrospective data, (4) assess the consistency of estimates of the level and trends of annual labor market transition rates across retrospective data from different waves of the survey, and (5) assess whether retrospective data can provide accurate trends of labor market aggregates, such as unemployment rates. We find that it is possible to garner useful information on labor market dynamics from retrospective data, but one must be cautious about which information to trust and at what level of detail. We conclude with a discussion of implications for future research as well as future survey design.