Factors of Career Mobility in Egypt by Gender

The paper focuses on a critical determinant, not only of females participating in the labor market but also of continuing in it: the opportunity cost of women’s participation in the labor market. It is believed that the opportunity cost for not working increases if the compensations consist of both wages and secured job conditions. The opportunity cost for not working decreases with the lack of secured conditions. Women with low compensations in terms of wages and secured conditions, their opportunity cost of not working decreases with marriage, which increases the probability of quitting the labor market. The target group in the paper is the males and females in Egypt aged between 18-64 years old, who have an intermediate or above educational degree, and are working as waged workers. The data used is from the 1998 ELMS (Egyptian labor market survey) and 2006 ELMPS (Egyptian Labor Market Panel Survey), using the advantage of having subset panel sample in both years. The career mobility is measured, and the job-to-job turnover by gender is observed in the paper. Career development over eight years and the impact of different factors on the development are analyzed. Probit model with sample selection and Heckman selection model are used in the analyses. The importance of the results increases with the privatization trend in the Egyptian economy. Male and female private sector workers are in a more critical condition, and as the private sector expands and absorbs more of the new entrants, more attention should be paid to them. Those new entrants are challenged by the tradeoff between wages and job security. Those who fail in getting engaged in the public sector of all males and young females have a higher probability of ending up with low secured jobs. Low wages and low job security are the main reasons for a female to quit working, once she gets married.