IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/erg/wpaper/755.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Happened to Real Earnings in Egypt, 2008 to 2009?

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Cichello
  • Hala Abou-Ali

    (Cairo University and ERF)

  • Daniela Marotta

Abstract

Nominal earnings in Egypt were non-responsive to the increase in inflation between February 2008 and February 2009, resulting in a 12.3 (9) percent decline in average (median) real earnings among 25 to 60 years old workers. Indeed, the decline appears to be directly related to the increase in inflation rather than to changes in the employment status or type or sector of employment. Changes in earnings differ significantly by groups: (i) those with higher initial earnings (reported and predicted) suffered the largest declines in earnings; (ii) when controlling for initial earnings, women lost considerably more than men; (iii) those who were initially in agriculture also had greater declines despite rising food prices. This evidence is consistent with the assumption of labor market segmentation, with agriculture representing the least preferred free entry sector and differential pay being offered to the same individual working in different sectors.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Cichello & Hala Abou-Ali & Daniela Marotta, 2013. "What Happened to Real Earnings in Egypt, 2008 to 2009?," Working Papers 755, Economic Research Forum, revised May 2013.
  • Handle: RePEc:erg:wpaper:755
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://erf.org.eg/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/755.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://bit.ly/2lTmqmb
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:dau:papers:123456789/1560 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Pieter Serneels, 2002. "The added worked effect and intra household aspects of unemployment," CSAE Working Paper Series 2002-14, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    3. Nadia Belhaj Hassine, 2012. "Inequality of Opportunity in Egypt," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 26(2), pages 265-295.
    4. repec:dau:papers:123456789/1562 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Rania Roushdy & May Gadallah, 2011. "Labor Market Adjustment during the World Financial Crisis: Evidence from Egypt," Working Papers 643, Economic Research Forum, revised 10 Jan 2011.
    6. Fields, Gary S. & Sánchez Puerta, María Laura, 2010. "Earnings Mobility in Times of Growth and Decline: Argentina from 1996 to 2003," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 870-880, June.
    7. Felix Naschold & Christopher B. Barrett, 2011. "Do Short‐Term Observed Income Changes Overstate Structural Economic Mobility?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 73(5), pages 705-717, October.
    8. Gary Fields & Paul Cichello & Samuel Freije & Marta Menendez & David Newhouse, 2003. "Household income dynamics: a four-country story," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(2), pages 30-54.
    9. Mona Said, 2012. "Wage Differentials During Economic Reform and Crisis: Evidence from Egypt and Jordan," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 54(1), pages 65-101, March.
    10. Lundberg, Shelly, 1985. "The Added Worker Effect," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 11-37, January.
    11. McKenzie, David J, 2004. "Aggregate Shocks and Urban Labor Market Responses: Evidence from Argentina's Financial Crisis," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(4), pages 719-758, July.
    12. Paul L. Cichello & Gary S. Fields & Murray Leibbrandt, 2005. "Earnings and Employment Dynamics for Africans in Post-apartheid South Africa: A Panel Study of KwaZulu-Natal1," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 14(2), pages 143-190, June.
    13. Gary Fields & Paul Cichello & Samuel Freije & Marta Menéndez & David Newhouse, 2003. "For Richer or for Poorer? Evidence from Indonesia, South Africa, Spain, and Venezuela," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 1(1), pages 67-99, April.
    14. World Bank, 2011. "Poverty in Egypt 2008-09 : Withstanding the Global Economic Crisis," World Bank Publications - Reports 12551, The World Bank Group.
    15. Gaurav Datt & Jennifer Olmsted, 2004. "Induced Wage Effects of Changes in Food Prices in Egypt," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(4), pages 137-166.
    16. Paul Cichello & Gary Fields & Murray Leibbrandt, 2003. "Earnings and Employment Dynamics for Africans in Post-apartheid South Africa: A Panel Study of KwaZulu-Natal," Working Papers 03077, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    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. Khalid Abu-Ismail & Niranjan Sarang, 2015. "Rethinking the measurement of the middle class: Evidence from Egypt," WIDER Working Paper Series 023, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Khalid Abu-Ismail & Niranjan Sarang, 2015. "Rethinking the Measurement of the Middle Class: Evidence from Egypt," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2015-023, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    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. Tobias Lechtenfeld & Asmus Zoch, 2014. "Income Convergence in South Africa: Fact or Measurement Error?," Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers 157, Courant Research Centre PEG.
    2. Hazel Jean Malapit & Jade Eric Redoblado & Deanna Margarett Cabungcal-Dolor & Jasmin Suministrado, 2006. "Labor Supply Responses to Adverse Shocks under Credit Constraints: Evidence from Bukidnon, Philippines," Working Papers PMMA 2006-15, PEP-PMMA.
    3. Duval Hernández, Robert & Fields, Gary S. & Jakubson, George H., 2020. "Inequality and Panel Income Changes: Conditions for Possibilities and Impossibilities," IZA Discussion Papers 13179, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Fields, Gary S. & Meng, Xin & Song, Yang, 2022. "Earnings mobility during labor market reforms in urban China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    5. Ingrid Woolard & Stephan Klasen, 2005. "Determinants of Income Mobility and Household Poverty Dynamics in South Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(5), pages 865-897.
    6. Lisa M. Dragoset & Gary S. Fields, 2006. "U.S. Earnings Mobility: Comparing Survey-Based and Administrative-Based Estimates," Working Papers 55, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    7. Andrew Kerr & Martin Wittenberg & Jairo Arrow, 2014. "Job Creation and Destruction in South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 82(1), pages 1-18, March.
    8. Essers, Dennis, 2013. "South African labour market transitions during the global financial and economic crisis: Micro-level evidence from the NIDS panel and matched QLFS cross-sections," IOB Working Papers 2013.12, Universiteit Antwerpen, Institute of Development Policy (IOB).
    9. Ija Trapeznikova & Juan Pablo Rud, 2015. "Wage Dispersion, Job Creation and Development: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa," 2015 Meeting Papers 1005, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Olivier Bargain & Prudence Kwenda, 2009. "The Informal Sector Wage Gap: New Evidence Using Quantile Regressions on Panel Data," CEDI Discussion Paper Series 09-06, Centre for Economic Development and Institutions(CEDI), Brunel University.
    11. Sabarwal, Shwetlena & Sinha, Nistha & Buvinic, Mayra, 2010. "How do women weather economic shocks ? a review of the evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5496, The World Bank.
    12. Joaquín Serrano & Leonardo Gasparini & Mariana Marchionni & Pablo Glüzmann, 2019. "Economic cycle and deceleration of female labor force participation in Latin America," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 53(1), pages 1-21, December.
    13. Ishac Diwan, 2014. "Understanding Revolution In The Middle East: The Central Role Of The Middle Class," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Ishac Diwan (ed.), UNDERSTANDING THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE ARAB UPRISINGS, chapter 3, pages 29-56, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    14. Fields, Gary S. & Sánchez Puerta, María Laura, 2010. "Earnings Mobility in Times of Growth and Decline: Argentina from 1996 to 2003," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 870-880, June.
    15. Johannes Fedderke, 2012. "The Cost of Rigidity: The Case of the South African Labor Market," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 54(4), pages 809-842, December.
    16. Olivier Bargain & Prudence Kwenda, 2014. "The Informal Sector Wage Gap: New Evidence Using Quantile Estimations on Panel Data," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(1), pages 117-153.
    17. Yelda Yücel, 2015. "Response to the crisis and gender segregation in Turkey’s labour market," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 26(2), pages 276-295, June.
    18. Xuehua Shi & Xiaoyun Liu & Alexander Nuetah & Xian Xin, 2010. "Determinants of Household Income Mobility in Rural China," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 18(2), pages 41-59, March.
    19. Ishac Diwan, 2013. "Who are the Democrats? Leading Opinions in the Wake of Egypt’s 2011 Popular Uprisings," CID Working Papers 256, Center for International Development at Harvard University.

    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:755. 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.