Women in Egypt have witnessed significant improvements in their education attainment levels over the last three decades. As a result, gender gaps previously found in several education indicators (such as literacy rates and enrollment ratios) have been reversed during the same time period. Despite the fact that education is a key enhancement for women's economic participation, paradoxically, such improvements have not led to a decrease in gender gaps found in the labor market. Weak female labor force participation does not only limit women&rsquo;s ability to improve their own as well as their children&rsquo;s well-being and prosperity, but also limits the size and growth of the whole economy.
The paradox
Recently published statistics for Egypt show that developments in some education and health indicators are rather progressive. For example, women&rsquo;s average life expectancy exceeds that of males. The average female life expectancy increased from 64.9 years in 1986 to 74 years in 2017, while males&rsquo; life expectancy increased from 60.1 years to 69.5 years during the same period.
Similarly, improvement in adult females&rsquo; literacy has been achieved at a higher rate than that of males. The average female literacy rate increased from 31.4% in 1986 to reach 65.5% in 2017, while the increase for males was from 57% to 76.5% during the same period.&nbsp;Female enrollment ratios in all education levels improved at rates higher than males. In fact, the gap is reversed in the primary and secondary education levels, with higher enrollment rates among girls compared to boys. Nonetheless, such improvements in education and health indicators were not similarly reflected in women&rsquo;s labor market participation and access to paid work--validating the existence of a paradox.
From 1990 to 2018, female labor force participation rates in Egypt have been stagnant and among the lowest worldwide (23.1% in 1990 and 24.7% in 2018), whereas male labor force participation rates were much higher and within the world average (65.3% in 1990 and 76.9% in 2018). In comparison to men, women face more obstacles while trying to join the formal labor market, and are more likely to be unemployed once incorporated into the labor force. While the unemployment rate in Egypt is higher than the world average for both males and females, the increase in female unemployment in Egypt is significant in comparison to national male averages and world averages for females. The female unemployment rate in Egypt increased from 17.89% in 1990 to 23.1% in 2018, compared to an increase from 5.15% to 7.8% for males and an increase from 5.64% to 5.92% in females&rsquo; global unemployment rate during the same period.
Underrepresentation and vulnerable employment
Employed Egyptian females are mainly concentrated in vulnerable jobs with poor working conditions and no access to social protection. In 2018, 34.5% of females were in vulnerable employment compared to 17.9% of male workers. Egyptian females primarily work in the services sector, representing 56.5% in 2018 compared to 36.7% in 1991. Part of a global pattern, Egypt has witnessed a decline in women&rsquo;s employment in agriculture from 52.9% of total female employment in 1991 to 36.7% in 2018. Female employment in the industrial sector accounts for a minor proportion of female employment in Egypt, witnessing a significant decline from 10.3% in 1991 to 6.8% in 2018.
Moreover, Egyptian females are underrepresented in management positions, in enterprise ownership and as employers. In 2016, Egypt reported the lowest share of females in total employment in senior and middle management positions at only 7.11% and only 17.8% of firms have female participation in ownership. Further, only 2.1% of total females worked as employers compared to 12.6% for males in 2018.
Ensuring and promoting gender equality in access to paid work requires formulating appropriate employment legislation. However, legal protection for women in employment is still poor in Egypt guaranteeing only four rights: 1) entitlement to paid maternity leave, 2) entitlement to nursing breaks for nursing mothers, 3) prohibition of pregnant workers&rsquo; dismissal and 4) existence of legislation on sexual harassment in employment. Paid paternity leave, equal pay for work of equal value, and parents&rsquo; entitlement to flexible/part-time employment are among other legal entitlements that are still missing.
Social context towards gender roles
While attainment of education, theoretically, encourages women&rsquo;s participation in the labor market, personal values and cultural norms related to an entrenched patriarchy may explain women&rsquo;s low participation rate in the labor force. Cultural values and norms in patriarchal societies like Egypt entail that a woman is the primary caregiver and the one responsible for unpaid housework, while men serve as the main breadwinners. According to the results of Nes2alak survey,12% of female respondents disagreed with the statement that education is important for shaping a woman&rsquo;s personality, while 83% agreed that female education is a tool to improve marriage opportunities. The results also showed that 45% of respondents think that Egyptian women cannot balance between paid work and unpaid household and care work. In 2015, World Development Indicators (WDI) data showed that on average, females in Egypt spent 22.4% of their day on unpaid domestic and care work while males spent only 2.4%. Consequently, this overburdens working women with household duties, responsibility for the care of children and the elderly, in addition to paid, market work. Coupled with the often-limited availability of childcare, this can prevent women from pursuing formal employment which may explain the gender gap in the labor force participation.
Similar norms and social values favor female participation in the public sector as it is more family-friendly (in terms of shorter working hours, larger share of female coworkers, longer maternity leaves, etc.). Accordingly, the private sector is considered incompatible with women&rsquo;s household responsibilities, while the majority of working women are concentrated in the health and education service sectors. Hence, there is a higher probability that women could withdraw from work in the private sector after marriage. Employment in the private sector is often also considered to be socially inappropriate as it is believed to be more prone to sexual harassment. Lack of safe, reliable transportation and fear of public harassment are also significant constraints on women&rsquo;s economic participation in Egypt. As such, limiting social perceptions coupled with a decrease in job opportunities in the public sector resulted in poor labor market outcomes for Egyptian women.
Discriminatory labor laws and practices
Although the Egyptian government and NGOs are making efforts in the direction toward gender equality, some laws are still biased against women. For example, there are restrictions on women working in jobs (in the mining, construction, manufacturing, energy, water, agriculture and transportation sectors) that are believed to be dangerous, difficult, or harmful for women. In addition, maternity leave is often inadequate; hence, to avoid bearing the costs of extended maternity leaves, private sector firms may be discouraged from hiring women.
Although some laws treat both genders equally, customary practices may prevent women from exercising their legal rights and from doing business. On the one hand, while both married men and women have equal ownership rights to property, women&rsquo;s rights are frequently violated by customary practices. On the other hand, and with regard to economic empowerment through entrepreneurship, many female entrepreneurs face obstacles in accessing credit due to prevailing conventional lending policies, absence of collateral, or distrust between bankers and female entrepreneurs. Moreover, women could also suffer from lack of access to technology, support and information about business opportunities. Therefore, availability and access to adequate resources and infrastructure can decrease the burden of housework on women and enable them to allocate more time to paid, protected labor market work.
The cure: What needs to be done?
Promoting women&rsquo;s access to paid work in Egypt is infeasible without changing attitudes towards gender roles coupled with the adoption of gender responsive policies. In this regard, recommendations can be grouped into four main points:
Transforming and changing attitudes towards gender roles: This requires raising awareness of both men and women with special emphasis on younger generations of women&rsquo;s equal rights and the critical role they can play in meeting basic needs of human survival and well-being. This could be done through education by reforming outdated systems and gender-biased teaching methods. In addition to advocacy and communication campaigns through social media and drama to enhance the importance of women&rsquo;s roles outside the household.
Encourage and enable women&rsquo;s participation in the private sector: &nbsp;With a significant decrease in the availability of public sector jobs, the private sector should play a central role in hiring females under female-friendly working conditions. This emphasizes the need to support women in searching for jobs that match their skills while improving &lsquo;family-friendly&rsquo; employment options by: 1) reforming maternity leave and childcare subsidy policies, 2) providing affordable childcare and paid parental leaves, 3) allowing for part time and flexible work, 4) formulating transport policies to address female&rsquo;s immobility in the labor market and provide safe means of transportation against the risk of harassment and any form of violence against women.
Promoting entrepreneurship opportunities for women and access to resources: By encouraging and facilitating women&rsquo;s access to entrepreneurship opportunities, financial inclusion becomes a fundamental enabler of female economic activity. This highlights the importance of advocating for training and capacity development programs that target financial institutions to better serve women, as well as graduation programs that adopt a multidimensional approach to provide women with a productive asset, training for that asset, in addition to health, consumption, savings, financial literacy and general life-skills support.
Construct and enforce a supportive legal and regulatory framework: Reforming legal and regulatory frameworks is a necessary step to relax regulatory restraints on female employment and to guarantee women&rsquo;s access to property, control over assets, ease of doing business, and free mobility and safety in the workplace. However, this must be complemented by strict enforcement of existing and new legal provisions reinforcing women&rsquo;s rights.
To sum up, the paradox unveils a mix of complex and interrelated socioeconomic, cultural, individual, structural and institutional factors. Hence, promoting women's access to paid work in Egypt is only feasible under the adaptation of gender responsive policies at the social, cultural, legal and economic fronts.
References
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