IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/erg/wpaper/1103.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Grievances or Skills? The Effect of Education on Youth Attitudes and Political Participation in Egypt and Tunisia

Author

Listed:
  • Ragui Assaad

    (University of Minnesota)

  • Miquel Pellicer
  • Caroline Krafft
  • Colette Salemi

Abstract

There are two prominent accounts of the 2011 Arab Uprisings and the role of education in youth mobilization. The first argument focuses on grievances: this hypothesis rests on a link between educational attainment and youth job aspirations that the labor market has not been able to fulfill. These unfulfilled aspirations fuel grievances and, hence, protest. The other argument focuses on mobilization costs. The central hypothesis is that education provides the skills, knowledge and/or contacts that facilitate political participation. This paper assesses and attempts to disentangle these two accounts by examining the effect of education on measures of grievance, political knowledge, and political participation using rich youth surveys from Egypt and Tunisia. In order to partially deal with the endogeneity of education, we control for parental education and sibling fixed effects. We find a strong and robust correlation of education with political knowledge and political participation, but not with grievances.

Suggested Citation

  • Ragui Assaad & Miquel Pellicer & Caroline Krafft & Colette Salemi, 2002. "Grievances or Skills? The Effect of Education on Youth Attitudes and Political Participation in Egypt and Tunisia," Working Papers 1103, Economic Research Forum, revised 01 Jun 2002.
    • Handle: RePEc:erg:wpaper:1103
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://erf.org.eg/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/1103.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://bit.ly/2qc0Uuv
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edward Glaeser & Giacomo Ponzetto & Andrei Shleifer, 2007. "Why does democracy need education?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 77-99, June.
    2. Milligan, Kevin & Moretti, Enrico & Oreopoulos, Philip, 2004. "Does education improve citizenship? Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1667-1695, August.
    3. Reham Rizk, 2016. "Returns to Education: An Updated Comparison from Arab Countries," Working Papers 986, Economic Research Forum, revised Apr 2016.
    4. Ragui Assaad, 2014. "Making sense of Arab labor markets: the enduring legacy of dualism," IZA Journal of Labor & Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-25, December.
    5. Dee, Thomas S., 2004. "Are there civic returns to education?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1697-1720, August.
    6. Costello, Matthew & Jenkins, J. Craig & Aly, Hassan, 2015. "Bread, Justice, or Opportunity? The Determinants of the Arab Awakening Protests," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 90-100.
    7. Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, 2009. "Education and Earnings in The Middle East: A Comparative Study of Returns To Schooling in Egypt, Iran, and Turkey," Working Papers 504, Economic Research Forum, revised Sep 2009.
    8. Assaad, Ragui & Krafft, Caroline (ed.), 2015. "The Egyptian Labor Market in an Era of Revolution," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198737254.
    9. Assaad, Ragui, 1997. "The Effects of Public Sector Hiring and Compensation Policies on the Egyptian Labor Market," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 11(1), pages 85-118, January.
    10. Tuomas Pekkarinen & Miquel Pellicer, 2013. "Education and allocation of skills in Tunisia: evidence from an education reform," IZA Journal of Labor & Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-21, December.
    11. Rachel Milstein Sondheimer & Donald P. Green, 2010. "Using Experiments to Estimate the Effects of Education on Voter Turnout," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 174-189, January.
    12. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2004. "Greed and grievance in civil war," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 563-595, October.
    13. Djavad Salehi-Isfahani & Insan Tunali & Ragui Assaad, 2009. "A Comparative Study of Returns to Education of Urban Men in Egypt, Iran, and Turkey," Middle East Development Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(2), pages 145-187, January.
    14. Sayre, Edward A. & Yousef, Tarik M. (ed.), 2016. "Young Generation Awakening: Economics, Society, and Policy on the Eve of the Arab Spring," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780190224615.
    15. Rania Salem, 2015. "Changes in the Institution of Marriage in Egypt from 1998 to 2012," Working Papers 911, Economic Research Forum, revised May 2015.
    16. Djavad Salehi-Isfahani & Insan Tunali & Ragui Assaad, 2009. "A Comparative Study Of Returns To Education Of Urban Men In Egypt, Iran, And Turkey," Middle East Development Journal (MEDJ), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 1(02), pages 145-187.
    17. Filipe R. Campante & Davin Chor, 2012. "Schooling, Political Participation, and the Economy," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(4), pages 841-859, November.
    18. Caroline Krafft, 2018. "Is School the Best Route to Skills? Returns to Vocational School and Vocational Skills in Egypt," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(7), pages 1100-1120, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pellicer, Miquel, 2018. "The evolution of returns to education in the Middle East and North Africa: Evidence from comparable education policy changes in Tunisia," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 183-191.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Campante, Filipe R. & Chor, Davin, 2014. "“The people want the fall of the regime”: Schooling, political protest, and the economy," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 495-517.
    2. Assaad, Ragui & Krafft, Caroline, 2015. "Is free basic education in Egypt a reality or a myth?," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 16-30.
    3. Chevalier, Arnaud & Doyle, Orla, 2012. "Schooling and Voter Turnout: Is there an American Exception?," IZA Discussion Papers 6539, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Assaad, Ragui & Krafft, Caroline, 2017. "Excluded Generation: The Growing Challenges of Labor Market Insertion for Egyptian Youth," IZA Discussion Papers 10970, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Celeste K. Carruthers & Christopher Jepsen, 2020. "Vocational Education: An International Perspective," CESifo Working Paper Series 8718, CESifo.
    6. Harka, Elona & Rocco, Lorenzo, 2022. "Studying more to vote less. Education and voter turnout in Italy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    7. Ibrahim, Solava, 2021. "The dynamics of the Egyptian social contract: How the political changes affected the poor," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    8. Willa Friedman & Michael Kremer & Edward Miguel & Rebecca Thornton, 2016. "Education as Liberation?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(329), pages 1-30, January.
    9. Testa, Patrick A., 2018. "Education and propaganda: Tradeoffs to public education provision in nondemocracies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 66-81.
    10. Amirah El-Haddad, 2016. "Government Intervention with No Structural Transformation: The Challenges of Egyptian Industrial Policy in Comparative Perspective (ARABIC)," Working Papers 1038, Economic Research Forum, revised Aug 2016.
    11. Djavad Salehi-Isfahani & Nadia Hassine & Ragui Assaad, 2014. "Equality of opportunity in educational achievement in the Middle East and North Africa," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 12(4), pages 489-515, December.
    12. Gerard Ferrer-Esteban & Mauro Mediavilla, 2017. "The more educated, the more engaged? An analysis of social capital and education," Working Papers 2017/13, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    13. Resul Cesur & Naci H. Mocan, 2013. "Does Secular Education Impact Religiosity, Electoral Participation and the Propensity to Vote for Islamic Parties? Evidence from an Education Reform in a Muslim Country," NBER Working Papers 19769, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Monica Martinez-Bravo, 2017. "The Local Political Economy Effects of School Construction in Indonesia," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 256-289, April.
    15. Doris A. Oberdabernig & Stefan Humer & Jesus Crespo Cuaresma, 2018. "Democracy, Geography and Model Uncertainty," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 65(2), pages 154-185, May.
    16. Raphael Bruce & Rudi Rocha, 2014. "The Reaction of Elites in a Democratization Process: Evidence from Brazil," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2014_09, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    17. Zafiris Tzannatos & Ishac Diwan & Joanna Abdel Ahad, 2016. "Rates of Return to Education in Twenty Two Arab Countries: an Update and Comparison Between MENA and the Rest of the World," Working Papers 1007, Economic Research Forum, revised May 2016.
    18. Ethan Kaplan & Fernando Saltiel & Sergio S. Urzúa, 2019. "Voting for Democracy: Chile's Plebiscito and the Electoral Participation of a Generation," NBER Working Papers 26440, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Bömmel, Nadja & Heineck, Guido, 2020. "Revisiting the Causal Effect of Education on Political Participation and Interest," IZA Discussion Papers 13954, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Bellani, Luna & Hidalgo-Hidalgo, Marisa, 2023. "Educate Some to Represent Many? Education and Female Political Representation in Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 16539, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:erg:wpaper:1103. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sherine Ghoneim (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/erfaceg.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.