Policy Briefs
Why Do So Few Married Women Work in Egypt?
No.
SP 6
Publisher
ILO and ERF
Date
November, 2023
In a nutshell:
- As of 2021, only 13 per cent of Egyptian women were employed
- Employment rates for married women are substantially lower than those of single women
- Women often exit work, particularly private sector work, around the time they marry
- Both demand-side (employer) and supply-side (women, household, and social) factors could contribute to married women’s low employment rates
- There has been limited research to date on the role of employer discrimination in married women’s low rates of employment
- This brief reports the results of an experiment assessing discrimination in employment by sex and marital status
- For the universe of online job postings, there does not appear to be significant discrimination against women or married women in callbacks, although specific jobs are gender-stereotyped
- The results underscore the importance of addressing supply-side constraints to women’s employment, particularly unequal care work responsibilities
Authors
Caroline Krafft
Associate Professor of Economics, St. Catherine University