IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/5740.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why does the productivity of education vary across individuals in Egypt ? firm size, gender, and access to technology as sources of heterogeneity in returns to education

Author

Listed:
  • Herrera, Santiago
  • Badr, Karim

Abstract

The paper estimates the rates of return to investment in education in Egypt, allowing for multiple sources of heterogeneity across individuals. The paper finds that, in the period 1998-2006, returns to education increased for workers with higher education, but fell for workers with intermediate education levels; the relative wage of illiterate workers also fell in the period. This change can be explained by supply and demand factors. On the supply side, the number workers with intermediate education, as well as illiterate ones, outpaced the growth of other categories joining the labor force during the decade. From the labor demand side, the Egyptian economy experienced a structural transformation by which sectors demanding higher-skilled labor, such as financial intermediation and communications, gained importance to the detriment of agriculture and construction, which demand lower-skilled workers. In Egypt, individuals are sorted into different educational tracks, creating the first source of heterogeneity: those that are sorted into the general secondary-university track have higher returns than those sorted into vocational training. Second, the paper finds that large-firm workers earn higher returns than small-firm workers. Third, females have larger returns to education. Female government workers earn similar wages as private sector female workers, while male workers in the private sector earn a premium of about 20 percent on average. This could lead to higher female reservation wages, which could explain why female unemployment rates are significantly higher than male unemployment rates. Formal workers earn higher rates of return to education than those in the informal sector, which did not happen a decade earlier. And finally, those individuals with access to technology (as proxied by personal computer ownership) have higher returns.

Suggested Citation

  • Herrera, Santiago & Badr, Karim, 2011. "Why does the productivity of education vary across individuals in Egypt ? firm size, gender, and access to technology as sources of heterogeneity in returns to education," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5740, The World Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5740
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2011/07/27/000158349_20110727094819/Rendered/PDF/WPS5740.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Therry Lallemand & François Rycx, 2006. "Establishment Size and the Dipsersion of Wages: Evidence from european Countries," Applied Economics Quarterly (formerly: Konjunkturpolitik), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 52(4), pages 309-336.
    2. Kahyarara, Godius & Teal, Francis, 2008. "The Returns to Vocational Training and Academic Education: Evidence from Tanzania," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 2223-2242, November.
    3. Mark R. Rosenzweig, 2010. "Microeconomic Approaches to Development: Schooling, Learning, and Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(3), pages 81-96, Summer.
    4. George Psacharopoulos & Harry Anthony Patrinos, 2004. "Returns to investment in education: a further update," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 111-134.
    5. Pedro Telhado Pereira & Pedro Silva Martins, 2000. "Does education reduce wage inequality? Quantile regressions evidence from fifteen European countries," Nova SBE Working Paper Series wp379, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics.
    6. Barrera-Osorio, Felipe & Linden, Leigh L., 2009. "The use and misuse of computers in education : evidence from a randomized experiment in Colombia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4836, The World Bank.
    7. World Bank, 2011. "Can Computers Help Students Learn?," World Bank Publications - Reports 10455, The World Bank Group.
    8. Mona Said, 2007. "The Fall and Rise of Earnings and Inequality in Egypt: New Evidence From the ELMPS, 2006," Working Papers 708, Economic Research Forum, revised 01 Jan 2007.
    9. Francis Teal & Godius Kahyarara, 2008. "The returns to vocational training and academic education: Evidence from Tanzania," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2008-07, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    10. Jackline Wahba, 1996. "Earnings and Regional Inequality in Egypt," Working Papers 9613, Economic Research Forum, revised 05 Feb 1996.
    11. Christine Binzel & Ragui Assaad, 2009. "The Impact of International Migration and Remittances on the Labor-Supply Behavior of Those Left behind: Evidence from Egypt," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 954, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    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. Biltagy, Marwa, 2019. "Gender wage disparities in Egypt: Evidence from ELMPS 2006 and 2012," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 14-23.
    2. Tareq Sadeq, 2014. "Formal-Informal Gap in Return to Schooling and Penalty to Education-Occupation Mismatch a Comparative Study for Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine," Working Papers 894, Economic Research Forum, revised Dec 2014.
    3. Reham Rizk, 2016. "Returns to Education: An Updated Comparison from Arab Countries," Working Papers 986, Economic Research Forum, revised Apr 2016.

    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. Santiago Herrera & Karim Badr, 2013. "Heterogeneity In Returns To Investment In Education In Egypt," Middle East Development Journal (MEDJ), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 5(03), pages 1-43.
    2. Calvès, Anne E. & Kobiané, Jean-François & N’Bouké, Afiwa, 2013. "Privatization of Education and Labor Force Inequality in Urban Francophone Africa: The Transition from School to Work in Ouagadougou," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 136-148.
    3. Rita Almeida & Marta Faria, 2014. "The wage returns to on-the-job training: evidence from matched employer-employee data," IZA Journal of Labor & Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-33, December.
    4. 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.
    5. Guirong Li & Jiajia Xu & Liying Li & Zhaolei Shi & Hongmei Yi & James Chu & Elena Kardanova & Yanyan Li & Prashant Loyalka & Scott Rozelle, 2020. "The Impacts of Highly Resourced Vocational Schools on Student Outcomes in China," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 28(6), pages 125-150, November.
    6. Todd Pugatch, 2014. "Safety valve or sinkhole? Vocational schooling in South Africa," IZA Journal of Labor & Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-31, December.
    7. Hisaki Kono & Yasuyuki Sawada & Abu S. Shonchoy, 2016. "DVD-based Distance-learning Program for University Entrance Exams: Experimental Evidence from Rural Bangladesh," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1027, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    8. Benedikte Bjerge & Nina Torm & Neda Trifkovic, 2016. "Gender matters: Private sector training in Vietnamese SMEs," WIDER Working Paper Series 149, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    9. Falco, Paolo & Kerr, Andrew & Rankin, Neil & Sandefur, Justin & Teal, Francis, 2011. "The returns to formality and informality in urban Africa," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(S1), pages 23-31.
    10. Mahdi Barouni & Stijn Broecke, 2014. "The Returns to Education in Africa: Some New Estimates," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(12), pages 1593-1613, December.
    11. Huzeyfe Torun & Semih Tumen, 2019. "Do vocational high school graduates have better employment outcomes than general high school graduates?," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 40(8), pages 1364-1388, August.
    12. Serneels, Pieter & Beegle, Kathleen & Dillon, Andrew, 2017. "Do returns to education depend on how and whom you ask?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 5-19.
    13. Henrik Hansen & S. Kanay De & John Rand & Neda Trifković, 2023. "Wage returns to workplace training in Myanmar," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 41(2), March.
    14. Reham Rizk, 2016. "Returns to Education: An Updated Comparison from Arab Countries," Working Papers 986, Economic Research Forum, revised Apr 2016.
    15. Harounan Kazianga & Leigh Linden & Ali Protik & Matt Sloan, 2015. "Impact Evaluation of Burkina Faso's BRIGHT Program: Design Report," Mathematica Policy Research Reports c0250cd3f27d448ea70d909c3, Mathematica Policy Research.
    16. Guillermo E. Perry & Omar S. Arias & J. Humberto López & William F. Maloney & Luis Servén, 2006. "Poverty Reduction and Growth : Virtuous and Vicious Circles," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6997, December.
    17. Facundo Alvaredo & Lydia Assouad & Thomas Piketty, 2019. "Measuring lnequality in the Middle East 1990–2016: The World’s Most Unequal Region?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 65(4), pages 685-711, December.
    18. Mahmoud K. El-Jafari, 2010. "Efficiency and Effectiveness of Palestinian Vocational Education and Training," Working Papers 571, Economic Research Forum, revised 11 Jan 2010.
    19. Gundersen, Sara, 2016. "Disappointing returns to education in Ghana: A test of the robustness of OLS estimates using propensity score matching," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 74-89.
    20. Teal, Francis, 2011. "The price of labour and understanding the causes of poverty," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(S1), pages 7-15.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Access&Equity in Basic Education; Teaching and Learning; Education For All; Primary Education; Labor Markets;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:wbk:wbrwps:5740. 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: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.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.