Intergenerational Mobility in Women's Employment Outcomes in Egypt

The importance of mothers’ educational and occupational attainments for understanding the social mobility of their children, and particularly daughters, has been increasingly emphasized as female labor force participation rates have risen in developed countries. However, few studies have yet to examine intergenerational occupational mobility between mothers and daughters in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, or contexts in which female labor force participation remains low. In this paper, I use the 1998, 2006 and 2012 waves of the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey to examine the intergenerational dynamics of women’s employment in Egypt. The findings demonstrate that mothers’ work status is highly predictive of their daughters’ labor market outcomes, suggesting that there is an intergenerational dynamic to women’s employment. In addition, there is a degree of continuity in the types of work that mothers and daughters engage in. The findings suggest that the current decline in labor force participation rates among female youth, and successful policies to promote higher employment rates among young women, could have ripple effects for subsequent generations.