Inequality of Opportunity in Wages and Consumption in Egypt.

Most explanations of the recent political upheavals in Egypt since 2011 include a reference to rising inequality, but the usual indicators of income inequality in Egypt do not support that inequality was on the rise prior to the uprisings. In this paper we provide measures of inequality of opportunity in wages and consumption for Egypt at different points in time from 1988 to 2012 that shed light on the gap between popular perceptions and measured indices of inequality. Our findings indicate that although measures of inequality of wage income have increased over time in Egypt starting in 1998, the share attributable to circumstances declined steadily throughout the whole period. We attribute this decline to the fact that outcomes for individuals from a middle class background have moved closer to the outcomes of those from a poor background. The outcomes for those from privileged backgrounds remain quite apart from the rest.

Does the Type of Higher Education Affect Labor Market Outcomes? Evidence from Egypt and Jordan.

In Egypt and Jordan there is a substantial mismatch between the output of the higher education system and the needs of the labor market. Both demand and supply-side factors could be driving this mismatch. This paper tests a key supply-side issue, whether differences in the institutional structures and incentives in higher education affect the labor market outcomes of graduates. Specifically, we ask if the stronger alignment of incentives in private relative to public higher education institutions produces more employable human capital and better labor market outcomes. We examine the impact of the type of higher education institution a person attends on several labor market outcomes while controlling for his or her pre-enrollment characteristics. The results demonstrate that supply-side issues and institutional incentives have little impact on labor market outcomes while family background plays by far the largest role. Proposed reforms for higher education often suggest increasing the role of the private sector in provision of higher education. Our findings indicate that this approach is unlikely to improve labor market outcomes.

Family planning and fertility decline in rural Iran: the impact of rural health clinics.

During the first few years of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and aided by pro-natal government policies, Iranian fertility was on the rise. In a reversal of its population policy, in 1989, the government launched an ambitious and innovative family planning program aimed at rural families. By 2005, the program had covered more than 90% of the rural population and the average number of births per rural woman had declined to replacement level from about 8 births in the mid 1980s. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of a particular feature of the program - health houses - on rural fertility, taking advantage of the variation in the timing of their construction across the country. We use three different methods to obtain a range of estimates for the impact of health houses on village-level fertility: difference-in-differences (DID), matching DID, and length of exposure. We find estimates of impact ranging from 4 to 20% of the decline in fertility during 1986-1996.