Gender-Based Wage and Occupational Inequality in the New Millenium in Egypt

Abstract

This paper adds to the existing literature on the Egyptian labor market by examining the extent to which the treatment of women in the Egyptian private labor market has evolved, and if occupational segregation has affected gender wage gaps in the newly transformed Egyptian economy. The paper tracks the current trend of gender based wage gaps, and evaluates the role of occupational segregation in explaining these gaps in the Egyptian private labor market. Comparing the years 2000 and 2004, and arranging occupations in three broad categories, findings of this study point to a wider occupational segregation and increased crowding of women in few jobs, which are becoming a more serious issue in pay differences than pure pay discrimination for both professional and blue collar women. Pay discrimination for white collar workers is not as severe as in professional and blue collar jobs. Therefore, policies that target inter-occupational components to close the wage gap may have far-reaching effects on professional and blue-collar workers, whereas policies targeting equal pay for equal jobs will have a greater success for white-collar workers.JEL Classifications: J71, J16, J24, J31 and C20

The gender wage gap in Egypt: public versus private sector

“…However, while women may earn higher wages than men, there is still differences in returns to productivity characteristics and gender segregation into low-paid sectors (El-Hamidi and Said, 2014). According to the ILO (2019), women with high levels of education are paid less than men with the same level of education even in the public sector, where schooling is generally more important than in the private one when defining individual earnings.…”

Do Endowments Matter? Exploring The Gender Dimensions Of Poverty In Egypt

“…AlAzzawi () and AlAzzawi and Said (), using panel data for 1998 and 2006 to analyze the degree of income and non‐income mobility, found that females tend to be “stuck” in the lower end of the distribution more often than males, both in terms of income and job quality measures. Several labor market studies have also documented an increase in the gender pay gap (Kandil,; AlAzzawi, ,), especially in manufacturing, as well as widespread occupational segregation (El‐Hamidi and Said, ). This is combined with a continuous decline in female labour force participation (Hendy, ) over the last two decades.…”

Gendered beliefs about glass ceiling in Egypt

“…Because of family commitments, Arab women often favour flexible hours or part-time schedules (Robbins et al, 2012), and may discount distant workplaces in their job search, (Kandil, 2015), thus restricting their employment opportunities. Recognizing this, family policies emphasizing parental leave schemes, flexible working hours and distance-working arrangements could ameliorate the restrictions for women and allow them to attain equal work experience and promotion opportunities to men (El-Hamidi and Said, 2014). A preference for such working conditions has made many women in Egypt look more to the government in their job search, making the public sector the principal employer for Egyptian women (Kandil, 2015).…”