Are Rural Egyptians Better Off? Trends in Inequality and Real Consumption Expenditure in Rural Egypt

Abstract

This article uses three selected national household surveys conducted in Egypt in 1981/1982, 2004/2005, and 2015 to assess the evolution of rural consumption inequality and trends in real rural consumption expenditure at the beginning year of Mubarak’s era, his end years, and the post‐Mubarak era, respectively. After evaluating inequality using inequality measures, we construct two consumer price indices (CPIs), a general and a food CPI, for rural Egypt for the period 1981 till 2015 to evaluate rural real consumption. The article concludes that rural consumption inequality had slightly fallen from the beginning of the Mubarak era toward its end, but slightly rose again in the post‐Mubarak era. Despite the changes, estimates of rural inequality were moderate. Nevertheless, such moderate levels of inequality are expected to be higher if the new rural areas in reclaimed desert lands are accounted for separately in national surveys. The article also concludes that according to our CPI, real rural consumption expenditure had fallen in most expenditure brackets throughout the whole period, with the exception of some small‐sized brackets at the very top and very bottom ends of the consumption expenditure distribution.