Suchergebnisse

The slowing of public sector hiring has been a tool for sector downsizing and one of the markers of the reform trajectory in public administration in Egypt. The effect of this long-term and non-confrontational approach to downsizing on the workforce of the public sector is captured in this article using a unique national panel dataset. The analysis shows that the share of public sector employment has declined in a pattern punctuated by a number of critical junctures that shaped the trajectory of the adoption of New Public Management (NPM)-inspired policies. The data shows that the sector workforce is becoming more educated, older, and slightly more feminized. Despite the specificity of the context of Egypt, the analysis furthers the study of public sector reform trajectories and the complexity of the contextualization of NPM-inspired policies in countries with a socialist legacy in the global South.

The public sector is the key employer of educated women in Arab countries. This article seeks to explain this phenomenon, embedding the employment experience of these women within the knowledge base of public service motivation (PSM). Relying on semi-structured interviews conducted with women from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, this article highlights three motivational factors among this group: "pure" service motivation; gender-specific motives; and extrinsic factors. The article shows that women's work in the public sector is socially valued for reasons that pertain to a culture of gender expectations and respect for the public service. The analysis extends the scholarship on PSM into a global context and highlights the limitations of a PSM scholarship that is focused on attitudinal statements. The qualitative data supports an argument for the inclusion of contextual variables pertaining to institutions of socialization, gender roles, historical contexts, and labor market conditions into PSM research.

Active labour market programmes (ALMPs) are at the core of welfare regimes in many countries across the world. This study addressed youth‐focused ALMPs in Egypt, a country with high youth unemployment and a plethora of programmes ostensibly addressing this issue. Building on interviews with implementers, programme documentation and a publically accessible inventory of programmes in Egypt, the analysis locates ALMPs within the country's overall welfare system and the politics of programme targeting, design, governance and implementation modalities. The legacy of state 'protective' policies and the fragmented multiplicity of players within the field constrain the effectiveness and outreach of these programmes. Analysis of implementation modalities also shows that there is a pervasive lack of programme coordination, activity documentation, management for results, and pathways to achieving sustainability and programme institutionalisation.Key Practitioner Message: • Egypt's fragmented ALMPs field must be integrated and coordinated within the country's broader welfare system • Programme documentation, management of results, rigorous evaluation and sustainability plans must be seriously addressed

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, it seeks to voice the concerns of educated youth in Egypt as they describe their work options and preferences. Second, it seeks to highlight the gravity of the policy gap in addressing work informality, drawing on some of the international experience in this field.


Design/methodology/approach
– Qualitative research in the form of in-depth interviews, desk-review of policies, and descriptive statistical analysis of a recent national survey of labour in Egypt.


Findings
– A large proportion of educated youth work within the realm of informality and there is a clear policy gap in addressing this issue. Contrary to what would be expected, young people value access to social security and work stability. They face systemic hurdles related to access to such benefits. Because of the legacy of guaranteed government hiring of the educated in Egypt, young people express a great appreciation of work in the government, for virtually being the only employer offering job stability and social security in the labour market.


Research limitations/implications
– This paper addresses a gap in the literature on youth employment in Egypt, where there is a dearth of research focusing on the lived experience of employment precariousness. The majority of studies in this field relies on statistics with little qualitative research voicing the views of this group.


Practical implications
– Reforms are more urgent than timely to extend social security and other measures of social protection to workers within the informal economy.


Originality/value
– The paper builds on primary data and provides insights about the way educated youth perceive their working conditions and options. The paper also provides a discussion of the social security system in Egypt, its coverage, and possible reform approaches.

PurposeThis paper aims to argue for the benefit of aligning the two policy objectives of youth inclusion and population regulation in Egypt. This alignment is mainly informed by the literature that identifies structural development issues as central to population regulation. These development issues relate to greater access to education, particularly to female youth, access to the labor market, access to family planning services and delayed age at marriage. These development issues are also at the heart of a youth‐focused policy agenda that would foster their successful transition to adulthood.Design/methodology/approachThe paper provides stylized data on the situation of youth in Egypt along the youth‐ and population‐related parameters identified in the paper and surveys population policies in Egypt in view of recent changes related to the country's democratic transition.FindingsThere is great benefit in aligning the objectives of population regulation and youth integration policies in post‐January 25 Egypt. This alignment will revive the population‐focused policy agenda, which is ostensibly absent from the policy discourse, using an already vibrant discourse seeking to include youth as part of Egypt's democratic transition.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the debate on youth and population issues in Egypt amid a highly volatile political scene and draws on the experience of post‐revolution Iran in terms of population policies.

Microcredit is a poverty alleviation strategy strongly associated with gender inequality and the feminization of poverty. In Egypt, microcredit operates within two major models. The economic survival model targets a female clientel with very small loan sizes and mainly group lending mechanisms. The business enhancement model primarily targets a not-so-poor clientel. A gap emerges where there are hardly any lending mechanisms addressing poorer men. The author argues that the the lopsided focus on providing microfinance services within the economic survival model to poor women and the exclusion of poor men constitutes a myopic poverty alleviation strategy that can actually oppress women rather than empower them. (DSE/GIGA)

Public sector hiring has been an essential component of the social bargains that have maintained political stability in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). As these bargains eroded, public sector workforces contracted in relative terms owing to a partial freeze on hiring and the promise of lifetime job security for incumbent workers. This had profound effects on the age composition of the workforce. The upcoming retirement of many workers provides an opportunity to restructure public sector hiring to emphasize meritocratic recruitment processes and performance-based compensation systems.

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to highlight the competing and overlapping discourses on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Egypt, a setting with a serious knowledge gap on CSR.


Design/methodology/approach
– This study is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with key players in the field of CSR in Egypt conducted in the fall of 2013 and early 2014. Informants included in this study were CSR staff members at major multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating in Egypt, key partner non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the field of CSR, media and public relations agents that are partners with MNEs in launching CSR media campaigns about CSR activities.


Findings
– The paper identifies three themes in the discourse on CSR among some of the key field players including CSR practitioners at MNEs, NGOs and media specialists. First, CSR is seen as a western version of a long standing philanthropic tradition, that is rooted in religion. The comparison between CSR and indigenous religious practices discredits CSR as a vulgarized form of giving that seeks to take more than give. Second, the surmount challenges of poverty and unemployment place heightened expectations on CSR to seriously address these challenges. It is in view of these challenges that CSR is accused of doing "bad" development, which is the third theme identified in the data.


Research limitations/implications
– There is a dearth of research on CSR in Egypt, which largely remains a setting less explored in terms of CSR. This paper problematizes the connection between CSR and development. It also highlights the importance of studying CSR in different contexts.


Practical implications
– The findings in this paper are relevant for the design of CSR programs in contexts of countries in the south.


Social implications
– CSR is a normative practice, understanding the views of its practitioners and criticisms of the field is central to its development and maturity.


Originality/value
– Paper builds on original data collected by the authors. It addresses a lacuna of research on CSR in the Middle East region, particularly Egypt.

Egypt has one of the lowest female labor participation rates in the world. Based on ethnographic research, this working paper argues that women in Egypt, particularly young women, face job-quality issues that discourage them from continuing to work or even entering the labor market. The paper highlights women's, particularly young women's, valorization of jobs in the public sec-tor and with the government, even if untenable. Discussed are the advantages presented by the public sector in Egypt, why those jobs are valorized by women, and the strategies young women adopt in clinging to the hope of getting a public sector/government job. Also examined are the reasons young women provide for their limited labor-market participation. The paper argues that these reasons are primarily related to job-quality issues and lack of decent work in the predominantly informal private sector in Egypt.