Women’s Participation in the Labor Market in Egypt: Constraints and Opportunities

The proposed research aims to study the barriers of women’s access to the labor market, women’s low participation rate and the required actions to enhance FLFP in Egypt. Mainly, what factors determine women’s participation in the labor force? And what type of employment? The answers to these questions will take into consideration formal and informal sectors, different geographic regions, economic sectors (agriculture vs. industry or services), income level and the community context of where the women live. Additionally, taking into consideration the social norms and the community context is a central contribution of the proposed research, especially since such factors have been ignored by the Egyptian empirical literature of FLFP. Another important contribution of this research is taking into consideration the endogeneity of two major determinants of FLFP: age of marriage and fertility.