Women’s employment exits in Egypt: the roles of marriage, children, job characteristics, and women’s empowerment

ABSTRACT

Transition to non-employment is prevalent for women in the Egyptian labor market, particularly those working in the private sector. This paper analyzes women’s labor market transitions, particularly to non-employment and to other labor market states in the time around marriage and childbirth. We test whether individual characteristics, work characteristics, or agency affect women’s transitions. Specifically, the paper answers three main questions: First, what are the explanatory factors for the women’s transition to non-employment? Second, what are the differences between the effect of previous job characteristics and women’s agency on the employment decision? Third, what are the determinants of the transition to other labor market states (multiple employment decisions)? Drawing on panel and retrospective data from the 2012 and 2018 waves of Egypt’s Labor Market Panel Survey, we estimate these relationships using a single risk model and a competing risk model. Results show that marriage and motherhood increase women’s transition to non-employment. The timing of the transition happens at marriage and the year before marriage (anticipation effect). This impact is more considerable for women working in the private sector than the public sector. Women working in non-wage work transition to private wage work in the years before marriage. The results show that the sector of employment plays a crucial role in women’s transition to non-employment. In addition, the availability of external help in the household is considered an important factor that can help retain women in the labor force.

KEYWORDS:

• Labor market transitions
• marriage
• childbirth
• hazard analysis
• Egypt
• ELMPS

JEL Classification:

• J12
• J13
• J16
• J21
• C41
• N35

Acknowledgments

The author appreciates the helpful comments, insights and recommendations of the participants in the workshop ‘Economic Vulnerability in the Arab World’ at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, the University of Minnesota and the helpful comments and recommendations of the participants in the workshop ‘Forschende Frauen 2021: Care inklusive?!’ at the University of Bamberg. The comments and suggestions of two anonymous referees significantly improved the paper and are highly appreciated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The availability of other adult females in the household is considered as a potential source of help if those other adult women contribute in the domestic and caregiving responsibilities.

2 Weights are used in the descriptive statistics.

3 There are various definitions about women’s autonomy (For a review of the definitions of autonomy, see Osamor and Grady (2016)). These definitions are mainly covering the aspect of the ability and liberty to make decisions independently about purchases, health decisions, going to places, and family decisions. It is understandable that some decisions needs to be made jointly with the husband or other family members, such as contraceptive measures. In this cases, sole decisions by the women are considered a sign of absence of support from her family members (Osamor & Grady, 2016). However, the items included in the index of women agency were selected carefully to avoid decisions that has such nature and include only items that the woman can decide on independently. The included items in the index indicate her increased level of autonomy and not lack of support from the husband.

Additional information

Funding

The Carnegie Fellowship on Vulnerability in the Arab world, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, USA, funded this work.