Thirty Years of Urban Bias: An Estimation of the Rising Disparities in Female Rural and Female Urban Unemployment and Income in Egypt

Abstract

This article highlights the disparities between female urban and rural employment and income in Egypt over the last decades, mainly resulting from urban bias policies. Despite their inferior educational levels, females in rural Egypt manifested higher levels of employment than their counterparts in urban Egypt, a phenomenon that the article attributes to the standard definition of unemployment, which includes unpaid family members as part of the ‘employed’, besides other methodological issues. As such, statistics could misleadingly imply better female rural income compared to female urban income. By means of an innovative attempt to estimate female rural and urban incomes, this article provides some evidence that female rural per capita income accounts for only 0.43 of female urban per capita income, despite rising from 0.2 in 1981. The female rural/urban gap was mitigated when female national incomes rather than female per capita incomes were estimated, with female rural national income accounting for nearly 0.73 of female urban national income.

Keywords

Feminist economics unemployment income distribution rural–urban gap inequality Egypt

Introduction

Disparities between male and female income and employment levels in Egypt have been intensively investigated through a plethora of studies over the last decades. Ranking 129 out of 142 countries and scoring 0.606 (0 = inequality; 1 = equality) in the Gender Gap Index, there is no question that Egypt has suffered and continues to suffer from low levels of gender equality (World Economic Forum, 2014). Despite high rates of female primary education and relatively good levels of preparatory (middle school) education, the contribution of women in the labour force has always been low, as women have comprised only 24.6 per cent of the labour force in urban Egypt and 23.0 per cent in rural Egypt, with an average contribution of 23.7 per cent in all Egypt (Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics [CAPMAS], 2014a).

While male–female disparities have been highlighted by many studies, female rural and female urban disparities in income and unem-ployment rates in Egypt received much less attention by academics. Many years of biased development policy towards the urban areas, in general, and the capital Cairo, in particular, have left persisting gaps in men and women’s income and employment levels in rural compared to urban Egypt. While the official statistics on Egypt provide data on Egyptian governorates, and some holistic indicators on rural and urban Egypt, they do not provide sufficient data on female rural and urban regional or per capita income separately, let alone the rural–urban gap with respect to female income. In other words, since data on female rural and female urban incomes and per capita incomes are not readily available, finding such data needs to be estimated. It is the aim of this study partially to fill the gap in the literature by attempting to estimate the inequalities in females’ employment and income levels in rural and urban Egypt and their development over the last few decades. The article looks at disparities in rural–urban female unemployment first, and then conducts a tentative, yet innovative, attempt to estimate such disparities in income over the past few decades.

The Theory of Urban Bias and Its Impact on Agrarian Political Economy in Egypt

In the 1920s, Soviet policymakers conducting planned economic develop-ment were considering how industrialization could be financed though manipulation of the rural economic product, bringing into being the question of rural–urban sectoral balance (Pugh, 1996). Economic theories by Lewis (1954), Kuznets (1955), Myrdall (1957) and others provided different justifications on why a rural–urban income differential would evolve as a country starts and proceeds in its development process. However, urban bias as a theory first appeared in 1977 by Michael Lipton who proposed that investments in agricultural areas targeting rural communities in developing countries are unequally and inefficiently distributed compared to those targeting their urban counterparts (Lipton, 1977). One of the reasons for the plight of the rural areas, according to Lipton, was the price distortions of goods and services, with agricultural goods and services produced in the rural areas being underpriced, while manufactured goods produced in the urban areas were overpriced. The theory had its impact on the World Bank through the initiation of the new structural adjustment policies that attempted to rectify previous price distortions through liberalizing prices. However, many years later, Eastwood and Lipton (2000) came up with new evidence that urban bias continues to prevail as the aforementioned policies have failed to overcome the devastating effects of urban bias. The authors assert that such policies may have remedied price distortions but that inequality in the distribution of public investments between rural and urban areas persists. The authors identified four factors for the perpetuation of urban bias despite price liberalization. First, structural adjustment programs provide better economic chances to the urban population compared to its rural counterpart. Second, there occurs a faster fertility transition in urban areas and movement of young people (and men in the case of Africa and Asia) in towns. Third, urban dwellers experience higher rises in their real incomes following price liberalization. Finally, national economic growth produces limited ‘spread’ effects on regional and ethnic groups (Jones & Corbridge, 2010). Despite facing many criticisms, the theory soon found its way into most economic development textbooks for providing partial justification for the perpetual poverty of rural sectors in many developing countries.

Critics of urban bias theory opposed it on several grounds. First, urban bias can vary across political systems with authoritarian regimes experiencing higher levels of urban bias compared to democracies (Varshney, 1993), even if there is no political power bias targeting its urban dwellers (Shifa, 2013). Second, urban bias can vary based on rural–urban ethnic, religious, or, generally speaking, cultural differences. Third, urban bias never forecasted how technological change could enhance the rural sector (Varshney, 1993).

Has Egypt’s agrarian change been influenced by urban-biased policies? In fact, Egypt’s recent history of agrarian transformation passed through several phases. The regime that followed the overthrow of the monarchy in 1952 embarked on a series of land reform laws in 1952, 1961, and 1969, whereby large private landownerships were confiscated and distributed to small or landless peasants. This era was also characterized by excessive government intervention in the econ-omy as the government manipulated the terms of trade between the government controlled prices of the agricultural produce of the rural sector (which the farmers had to supply through the compulsory cropping and procurement system), and the government controlled prices of the manufactured inputs produced by the urban sector, in order to reap an agricultural surplus for industrializing the country. As implicit taxation of agriculture during that era was extensive (Grabowski, 2012), the government at that time was thus contributing to urban bias by conducting what Pugh (1996) described as Soviet-style economic development.

Confronting several economic challenges, the government during Mubarak’s era (1980–2011), reversed its policy to adopt a World Bank structural adjustment programme (titled ERSAP) in 1991. As a result, state intervention in the cropping pattern, crop marketing and supply of credit ended, while agricultural produce prices were left to market forces. Fixed agricultural rents were abolished and a new land tenancy law in 1992 gave landowners and tenants a 5-year transitional period, after which agricultural rents would rise (Helmy, 2011). Researchers assessing Mubarak’s era were indecisive on whether the program had positively or negatively affected the rural population. However, many studies support the evidence that investments during the 1990s were targeted towards capital-intensive investments and against small enterprises, which usually contributes to modest enhancement in employment (Fawzy, 2002). Since capital-intensive industries are usually located in urban areas, and as most economic enterprises in the rural areas are small scale, it is quite probable that the Mubarak policies—despite partially removing urban bias through price distortions (Grabowski, 2012)—still contributed to urban bias through what Eastwood and Lipton (2000) describe as the unequal distribution of public investments between urban and rural areas.

Why Does Urban Bias Matter to Women?

The previous discussion provides evidence that the theory of urban bias is reasserted rather than challenged when applied to Egypt and to women in particular, for various reasons. First, the previous criticisms (which challenged the theory) do not apply to Egypt. Regarding political regimes, since 1952, Egypt has been a predominantly authoritarian regime where urban bias flourishes compared to democracies. Second, cultural factors aggravate urban bias especially with respect to women in Egypt who already suffer from gender bias resulting in a lower female literacy rate (68% of all adult females above 15 years of age in 2015 compared to 84% for male counterparts, according to World Bank), and from several barriers to female employment (Cavalcanti & Tavares, 2016). In addition, government policies never aimed at counteracting this phenomenon by, for example, giving priority to female-headed families in agrarian reforms, such as the case in Brazil (Deere, 2017). On the contrary, most government policies in recent decades have favoured commercial agriculture and foreign direct investment from large multinational corporations engaged in agribusiness at the expense of smallholders, mostly women, a policy adopted in most African countries (Nyambura, 2015). The Toshki project in southwest Egypt is exemplary of such policy, where large land plots were sold to large investors for reclamation. In addition, as previously indicated by Eastwood and Lipton, men suffering from inferior conditions in Asia and Africa have greater mobility than women to move to towns and cities. In other words, Egyptian rural women facing a second source of bias represented in the rural/urban bias would exacerbate their already existing gender bias. This study is a pioneer in feminist economics in that it attempts to estimate the double bias that rural Egyptian women face regarding their incomes and employment.

Disparities in Female Rural and Female Urban Income and Employment: A Brief Review of the Literature

As previously mentioned, the literature on female employment and income in Egypt has missed or neglected female differences in income and employment between rural and urban regions, by either focusing on gender differences in income and employment in Egypt or concentrating on regional differences in income and employment between Egyptians in general, rather than between rural and urban women. Hassine’s (2015) study, for example, evaluates determinants of economic inequality in 12 Arab countries including Egypt, using household surveys. Nevertheless, the study’s emphasis is on the determinants of the rural/urban welfare gap in general, rather than the female rural and urban gap. Valentine Moghadam’s (2005) study investigates changes in female employment in the aggregate levels in mainly three Middle Eastern countries, Iran, Jordan and Tunisia, in the periods between the 1960s and 1980s, and following the liberalization policies in the late 1980s. Despite the importance of the study, it does not concentrate on the Egyptian case. Yount and Agree’s (2005) study compares older male/female disparities in disabilities in Egypt and Tunisia, focusing on disabilities from a health perspective rather than from an income perspective. El Hamidi (2010) discusses disparities from a narrow perspective by focusing on male/female differences in the decision for early retirement in Egypt’s governmental sector. Many other studies observe differences in employment in Egypt between males and females, rather than between urban and rural females. Cavalcanti and Tavares’s (2016) study introduces a new model to quantify the cost that obstacles to female employment inflict on economic output in a number of countries including Egypt, confirming the negative impact of such obstacles on output in Egypt. Alquezar, Panzica and Popova (2009) investigated the obstacles facing women’s employment in only two sectors in Egypt, tourism and information and communication technologies (ICT) and provide recommendations for enhancing the role of women in the labour market. Barsoum, Ramadan and Mostafa (2014) focused on the different factors affecting the transitions in the youth labour market, particularly in Egypt.

However, before comparing and contrasting regional differences, we will attempt to have a closer look at the micro-level gap between indivi-dual governorates. The following section provides some estimates of the female rural–urban gaps pertaining to several employment indicators at the governorate level over the past three decades.

Disparities in Female Employment Between Egyptian Governorates

Labour sample surveys classify data on Egyptian governorates according to four main categories: urban governorates, lower Egyptian governorates, upper Egyptian governorates and the frontier governorates. In Table 1, we selected four milestone years, namely 1981 (the beginning of the Mubarak era), 1997 (several years following the implementation of the first Structural Adjustment Program in 1991), 2007 (close to the end of the Mubarak era in late 2010) and 2013 (the post-Mubarak era). As can be gleaned from Table 1, over the period 1981–2013, female unemployment rates in the two urban governorates, Cairo and Alexandria, had almost doubled. In the two other metropolitan governorates, the rate decreased in 1997, to increase again in 2013, with Port Said recording the highest female unemployment rate in all governorates (39.2%). By 2013, female unemployment ranged between 28 per cent and 39 per cent in the four purely urban governorates.

Table 1.

Distribution of Female Unemployment and Females in the Labour Force by Governorates, 1981–2013

	Female Unemployment Rate				Female Labour Force (% of total)
Governorate	1981	1997	2007	2013	1981	1997	2007	2013
Urban governorates							–
Cairo	14.8	13.3	22.6	28.3	17.1	19.7	20.1	24.6
Alexandria	17.7	15.9	17.9	30.5	17.3	14.8	21.6	23.0
Port Said	28.5	20.4	22.8	39.2	21.3	28.1	24.4	33.4
Suez	32.7	24.0	29.6	36.7	9.7	23.7	22.1	23.6
Lower Egypt
Damietta	3.9	22.1	20.1	32.1	18.3	14.6	18.6	17.6
Dakahlia	23.7	32.5	31.5	30.1	9.2	22.5	24.5	23.1
Sharkia	22.0	16.8	17.4	30.0	7.0	26.8	28.6	20.1
Kalyoubia	14.7	17.7	26.1	17.8	7.7	20.5	18.6	19.0
Kafr El-Sheikh	16.0	17.5	20.7	29.7	6.5	24.2	24.1	23.2
Gharbia	10.6	25.5	27.9	28.2	12.9	25.7	25.2	24.9
Menoufia	22.0	13.8	12.7	11.8	6.3	34.5	25.9	30.4
Behera	2.5	31.0	13.7	11.7	9.3	22.8	30.3	34.0
Ismailia	16.3	21.6	22.2	30.0	13.6	18.5	24.8	26.7
Upper Egypt
Giza	9.7	12.3	13.8	24.4	12.0	9.8	14.3	14.8
Beni Suef	11.5	9.4	4.6	8.8	7.9	29.6	33.6	38.4
Fayoum	9.8	17.7	6.3	22.9	11.4	10.7	24.6	20.1
Menia	9.2	11.4	8.7	21.4	7.4	27.6	30.8	27.8
Assiut	27.1	41.3	20.3	36.2	4.9	13.7	21.5	17.8
Suhag	12.9	11.5	21.3	35.2	4.9	18.9	24.6	15.9
Qena	9.8	17.0	18.8	37.3	7.3	17.1	17.3	27.2
Luxor	–	11.2	35.5	35.1	–	14.6	21.6	14.7
Aswan	24.4	51.3	36.8	32.1	4.9	13.5	13.8	17.6
Frontier governorates
Red Sea	–	34.4	16.1	32.8	–	14.0	6.9	16.9
New Valley	–	24.5	28.2	29.0	–	33.0	42.6	34.3
Matrouh	0.0	7.0	8.1	8.6	10.1	27.7	19.0	31.7
North Sinai	0.0	36.5	13.1	20.9	7.7	22.0	20.2	23.7
South Sinai	–	–	20.5	20.7	–	–	7.4	13.9
Egypt	14.8	19.4	18.3	24.3	10.6	21.3	23.7	23.7
Urban	16.9	21.0	24.3	29.4	15.8	20.9	22.0	24.6
Rural	10.3	18.2	14.6	20.4	6.2	21.6	24.8	23.0

Source: CAPMAS, Labour Force Sample Surveys (1981, 1997, 2007, 2013). Percentages calculated by the author.

In most of the governorates of Lower Egypt, female unemployment rate also rose steadily, despite sometimes slightly falling in 1997. Menofia, Behera and Kaliobia were the only exceptions where female unemployment declined steadily, with Menofia’s rate starting in 1981, Behera starting in 1997 and Kaliobia starting in 2007. By 2013, female unemployment ranged between 12 per cent and 32 per cent.

In two of the governorates of Upper Egypt, namely Giza and Luxor, female unemployment rate rose steadily, while it followed a more or less zigzag pattern in most governorates, falling in 1997, rising in 2007 and falling again in 2013. The only Upper Egyptian governorate that witnessed a steady fall, despite rising in 2013, was Beni Suef. Nevertheless, with the exception of Beni Suef, many governorates in Upper Egypt had relatively higher levels of unemployment when compared to those of Lower Egypt, such as Qena (37.3%), Assuit (36.2%), Suhag (35.2%) and Luxor (35.1%). By 2013, female unemployment ranged between 9 per cent and 37 per cent, reflecting a larger disparity compared to the Lower Egypt and urban governorates.

Finally, with respect to the frontier governorates, the zigzag pattern was also maintained in most of them, with the exception of Matrouh, which witnessed a steady rise in the female unemployment rate despite recording the lowest female unemployment rate among all governorates in 2013. By 2013, female unemployment ranged between 9 per cent and 33 per cent, signifying a large disparity similar to that of Lower Egypt.

Overall, female unemployment in urban areas of all governorates experienced a rising trend from nearly 17 per cent to 29 per cent over the period 1981–2013, while female unemployment in rural areas of all governorates increased from nearly 10 per cent to 20 per cent over the same period, despite rising in 1997, then falling in 2007. In all Egypt, female unemployment rose from nearly 15 per cent to nearly 24 per cent over the period studied.

Concerning the second indicator (female labour force as a percentage of total labour force), it is evident that the Upper Egyptian governorate of Beni Suef recorded the highest percentage in 2013 (38.4%), and earlier in 2007 (33.6%). A quick glance at the two indicators—female unemployment rate and the percentage of female labour force in total labour force in 2013—reveals that some correlation appears to exist between the two indicators, with the governorates recording relatively low female unemployment rates witnessing relatively high percentages of female labour force in total labour force, such as Menofia, Behera, Beni Suef, New valley, and Matrouh.

Among the reasons why the female unemployment rate may be higher in some governorates, especially those of Upper Egypt, are, first, the bias in the distribution of infrastructural investments and, second, the capital-intensive nature of some investments. According to Helmy and Al-Ayouty (2014), despite several claims of the government to fill the disparities in infrastructural investments in previous development plans, Egypt’s official 2013/2014 development plan had been more in favour of Cairo and Alexandria. Moreover, such investments were primarily in capital- and energy-intensive industries. Such investments were not very con-ducive to decreasing unemployment in some governorates, according to the authors. In addition, such industries could only be established in the urban areas. While Helmy and Al-Ayouty’s study was tackling the unem-ployment problem in general and not specifically related to female unemployment, such urban-biased policies have had their repercussions on women’s employment as well, especially when taking into consider-ation the difficulty women face when commuting to the new industrial areas (Assad & Arntz, 2004).

Although the micro-level picture depicted by the female unemploy-ment rates and shares in labour force illuminates much of the disparities among governorates, the picture is confusing to a certain degree due to the unexplained rises and falls in rates over a relatively short period. Beni Suef, for example, had low levels of female literacy relative to other governorates in 2002 (United Nations Development Programme [UNDP] and National Planning Institute [NPI], 2004), yet its records in the previously mentioned indicators were better. We believe that one of the reasons for this may be the geographical division of each governorate, which allocates for each governorate a small slice of land east and west of the Nile in Upper Egypt and a small part of the fertile delta in Lower Egypt. Any investment in a certain year would be reflected in a lower unemployment rate in one governorate, while an adjacent one would preserve its previous level.

A second reason why the picture seems perplexing is that lower levels of unemployment (for example, Beni Suef’s 8.8% compared to Cairo’s 28.3%, in 2013) may imply that women in Beni Suef governorate are enjoying higher income standards than their counterparts in Cairo. To partly solve this perplexity, we look at the female unemployment rate in 2013 through another angle—the distribution of the labour force according to gender and type of employment (Table 2). The objective is to investigate the sectors in which women are employed, if they are. In addition, instead of looking at the picture through the micro governorate level, we focus on the differences between urban and rural consolidated figures related to male and female labour forces.

Table 2.

Distribution of the Labour Force According to Type of Work and Gender, 2013

Geographical Area and Gender	Employed (in hundreds)								Unemployed (in hundreds)		Total
Geographical Area and Gender	Wage Labour	%	Owner Operated and Employs Others	%	Owner Operated and Does Not Employ Others	%	Unpaid Family Labour	%	No.	%	Total Labour Force (in hundreds)	%
Urban Egypt
Male	55,668	61.4	7,215	8.0	14,816	16.3	1,937	2.0	1,1312	12.4	90,648	100
Female	16,621	57.7	254	0.9	853	3.0	2,691	9.3	8,402	29.1	28,821	100
Total	72,289	60.4	7,469	6.2	15,669	13.1	4,628	3.9	1,9714	16.4	119,769	100
Rural Egypt
Male	65,393	54.2	21,830	18.1	15,403	12.7	8561	7.1	9528	7.9	120,715	100
Female	8,739	24.5	798	2.2	4,591	12.8	14365	40.2	7246	20.3	35,739	100
Total	74,132	47.4	22,628	14.5	19,994	12.8	22926	14.6	16774	10.7	156,454	100
All Egypt
Male	12,1061	57.2	29,045	13.7	30,219	14.3	10,498	5.0	20,840	9.8	211,663	100
Female	25,360	39.3	1,052	1.6	5,444	8.5	17,056	26.4	1,5648	24.2	64,560	100
Total	14,6421	53.0	30,097	10.9	35,663	12.9	27,554	9.9	3,6488	13.2	276,223	100

Source: Raw figures extracted from CAPMAS, Table 6 (2014a, p. 80). Percentages calculated by the author.

Disparities in Female Employment Between Rural and Urban Egypt

From Egypt’s Labour Force Survey conducted in 2013, it is clear that since the population is larger in rural Egypt (48 million) compared to urban Egypt (36 million) (ARE Statistical Yearbook), this is automatically reflected in the larger number of rural males and rural females in the labour force.

By looking at the unemployment indicators, some puzzling statistics appear. First, the female urban unemployment rate proved much higher (29.1%) than the female rural unemployment rate (20.3%). One of the reasons might be that, in rural areas, a large percentage of female employ-ment is in the form of unpaid family labour. While unpaid labour is—and should be—rightly included in the classification of ‘employed’ indivi-duals, in accordance with the unemployment rate definition of the Inter-national Labour Organization (ILO, 1982), the mere fact that this segment of unpaid workers is included in the classification of the ‘employed’ may partly hide the truth concerning the well-being of residents in rural and urban Egypt.¹ In other words, higher female employment levels in rural Egypt may misleadingly lead to wrong inferences that women in rural Egypt are earning more than those of urban Egypt due to their higher levels of employment. The category of unpaid family labour accounts for nearly 40 per cent of the female labour force in rural areas compared to only 9 per cent in the urban areas. As a result of their consideration as part of the employed, the female rural unemployment rate is affected positively much more than the female urban unemployment rate. If this segment is excluded from the employed personnel, it is expected that female rural unemployment would be higher than female urban unemployment.

Another reason why female urban unemployment may be higher than female rural unemployment is the higher levels of education of urban females compared to rural ones, a phenomenon sometimes accompanied with higher—rather than lower—levels of unemployment. As evident from Egypt Human Development Report 2004, the percentage of women 15 years or above who have completed their secondary or higher education compared to the total number of women in their region amounted to 37 per cent in urban governorates, 22.6 per cent in Lower Egypt, 16.5 per cent in Upper Egypt and 21.9 per cent in frontier governorates. On average, 35.6 per cent of the total number of women in urban Egypt completed secondary education or higher compared to only 13.5 per cent of women in rural Egypt (UNDP and NPI, 2004). While many researchers point to the importance of education in enhancing women’s employment (Abdel, 2009), some empirical evidence supports the fact that unemployment rates in Egypt rise with the rise in education and wealth, the main reason again being the definition of unemployment itself. According to Krafft and Assaad (2014), the unemployment rate indicator in Egypt reflects the predicament of the well-off and educated who can afford to remain for a longer period searching for jobs in the bureaucracy, rather than the cyclical unemployment suffered by the poor and uneducated (see the definition of ‘unemployed’ in note 1). Contributing to this phenomenon is also the fact that the vast majority of uneducated women are usually not in the labour force (90% of the uneducated women and 49% of the educated ones were not in the labour force in 2012, according to Krafft and Assad). For those uneducated women still remaining in the labour force, only 1 to 2 per cent was unemployed in 2012, compared to 19 per cent for educated women. Although such figures justify why the unemployment rates are higher among urban females compared rural ones, they also indicate why the unemployment rate itself can be a misleading indicator of labour market health conditions (Krafft & Assaad, 2014).

The higher level of female urban unemployment compared to female rural unemployment seems to be persistent over the last four decades. Table 3, showing such levels since 1981, confirms the above phenomenon, probably due to the reasons mentioned earlier. However, the rate of increase of female rural unemployment was higher than that of female urban employment.

Table 3.

Male and Female Unemployment Rates in Egypt, 1981–2013

Region	Unemployment Rate
Region	1981	1997	2007	2013
Urban areas
Male	5.2	5.9	8.0	12.5
Female	16.9	21.0	24.3	29.1
Rural areas
Male	2.8	4.3	4.2	7.9
Female	10.3	18.2	14.6	20.3
Total Egypt
Male	3.8	5.0	5.8	9.9
Female	14.8	19.4	18.3	24.3

Source: Raw figures were extracted from CAPMAS, Labour Force Sample Surveys (1981, 1997, 2007, 2013). Percentages calculated by the author.

Focusing on the trend in female urban unemployment reveals that the fastest rate of increase was between 1997 and 2007 (by 24%). The rising rate of female urban unemployment during that period compared to male urban unemployment is attributed by many to the adoption of Egypt’s Economic Reform and Structural Adjustment Program (ERSAP) in 1991. According to Assad and Arntz (2004), ERSAP was accompanied by the defeminization of private sector employment due to barriers to the entry of females imposed by employers who are discouraged by the high rate of female employees turnover and their inability to endure long hours of work. Employers in the private sector preferred males who also had the ability to commute a long distance to work, especially since the govern-ment provided tax exemptions to investments in the new industrial cities in the desert. Women were pressured to confine their employment to non-wage work primarily in subsistence agriculture and domestic work. As evident from Table 3, the gender gap also increased from 1981 to 1997: the urban female unemployment rate, which was 3.3 times the male urban unemployment in 1981, became 3.6 in 1997, while, in rural Egypt, rural female unemployment rose from 3.7 times the rural male unemployment in 1981 to 4.2 times in 1997.

Such a trend of rising female unemployment started earlier in Egypt, with the first attempts to implement structural adjustment in the late 1970s. According to Hatem (1994), Egypt’s preliminary attempts towards structural adjustment in the late 1970s and early 1980s have had their negative impact on women’s employment. In 1977, when the Egyptian government removed some subsidies on food products, riots spread in many parts of the country forcing the government to retreat. Even though subsidies were maintained, the government started gradually to diminish its role in the economy, reversing some of the socialist policies undertaken during the Nasser era (1954–1970), such as guaranteed employment of fresh graduates in government and public sector jobs. Since government jobs were among the main destinations of female graduates, the new policies led to the gradual undermining of state employment of women, provision of less hospitable working conditions for women and the decline of expenditure on health and education (Hatem, 1994). Since then, government policies began to favour privatization and less govern-ment involvement in the economy, culminating in the signing of a structural adjustment program in 1991. With the decline in governmental and public sector jobs, women prefer to remain inactive rather than work in the private sector jobs (Hendy, 2015).

Focusing on the trend in female rural unemployment reveals that the fastest rate of increase in that indicator took place between 1981 and 1997 (by 77%). Female rural unemployment, which has historically been lower thanks to the inclusion of unpaid family labour as previously mentioned, has been rising at a faster pace than female urban unem-ployment. The very small plots of lands that were distributed to the landless and small farmers (five feddans for each landless farmer), by the Land Reform Laws of 1952, 1961 and 1969, were subject to successive divisions among family members through inheritance. The fragmentation of land coupled with a high population growth rate resulted in the increase in the supply of unpaid family labour. Data on agricultural landownerships in Egypt reveal that only 3.4 per cent of total landowners owned farms less than one feddan in 1981 Ministry of Agriculture, 1989), compared to 57.6 per cent in 2010 (CAPMAS, 2015). As a result, the percentage of rural females working as unpaid family members soared from nearly 14 per cent of total labour force in 1981 to 42 per cent in 1997 and stabilized at nearly 40 per cent in 2006 and 2013 (CAPMAS, 1981, 1997, 2006, 2013 surveys). On the other hand, the percentage of rural females working as wage earners plummeted from nearly 40 per cent of the total labour force in 1981 to 25 per cent in 1997, to 23 per cent in 2006, stabilizing at nearly 25 per cent in 2013 (CAPMAS, 1981, 1997, 2006, 2013).

The statistics at the micro governorate level and the regional rural or urban level give a challengeable result: that some predominantly rural governorates and rural regions enjoy higher levels of employment than urban or metropolitan areas, which might imply that these areas enjoy higher levels of income. This result is not only challenged by the lower educational levels in the rural areas as mentioned earlier, but also by the fact that most female rural employment is unpaid. Furthermore, as can be gleaned from Table 2, paid female rural labour accounts for only 25 per cent of the rural female labour force compared to nearly 58 per cent of the female urban labour force. Therefore, it is expected that the per capita female urban income would be higher than per capita female rural income, despite the higher levels of female urban unemployment. As there are no official statistics in Egypt on the female urban and rural incomes, whether on the national or per capita levels, we will attempt in the next section to provide a rough estimate of such levels and the evolution of income inequalities between the rural and urban sectors in Egypt over the last decades.

An Estimation of the Female Rural/Urban Income Gap

In this section, we conduct a tentative attempt to estimate the female rural and the female urban national and per capita incomes. In the absence of an official estimation of female national income, we have to affirm that the methodology employed is based on a number of facilitating assumptions and, therefore, may encompass a margin of inaccuracy. Nevertheless, it represents a beginning and highlights the disparities between Egypt’s two main regions in terms of female income.

The method of estimation is undergone through a series of steps or equations to reach our final results concerning female rural and urban income and the ratios between them. The derivation of the equations and the sources of the data used are explained in detail in Table B1 in Appendix B. The 20 equations used can be written as follows:

MGDI_agr = GDI_agr × MPCT_agr

FEMGDI_agr = GDI_agr × FEMPCT_agr

PCY_agr = GDI_agr/POP_agr (where POP_agr = POP_rural × Percent_agr)

MGDI_non-agr = GDI_non-agr × MPCT_non-agr

FEMGDI_non-agr = GDI_non-agr × FEMPCT_non-agr

PCY_non-agr = GDI_non-agr/POP_non-agr (where POP_non-agr = POP_rural × Percent_non-agr)

PCY_rural = [(PCY_agr × POP_agr) + (PCY_non-agr × POP_non-agr)]/POP_rural

MPCY_rural = [(MGDI_agr) + (MGDI_non-agr)]/(MPOP_rural)

FEMPCY_rural = [(FEMGDI_agr) + (FEMGDI_non-agr)]/(FEMPOP_rural)

PCY_urban = [GDI – GDI_rural]/POP_urban

MGDI_urban = GDI_urban × MPCT_urban

FEMGDI_urban = GDI_urban × FEMPCT_urban

MPCY_urban = MGDI_urban/MPOP_urban

FEMPCY_urban = FEMGDI_urban/FEMPOP_urban

MGDI = MGDI_urban + MGDI_rural

FEMGDI = FEMGDI_urban + FEMGDI_rural

Ratio of female rural per capita to female urban per capita income = FEMPCY_rural/FEMPCY_urban

Ratio of female rural national to female urban national income = [FEMGDI_agr + FEMGDI_non-agr]/FEMGDI_urban

Ratio of female national income to male national income = [FEMGDI_rural + FEMGDI_urban]/[MGDI_rural + MGDI_urban]

Ratio of national rural to urban (males and females) per capita income PCY_rural/PCY_urban

where

MGDI_agr = average male agricultural income in LE

GDI_agr = agricultural income in LE

MPCT_agr = percentage of male workers actually engaged in agricultural activity in rural areas

FEMPCT_agr = percentage of female workers actually engaged in agricultural activity in rural areas

PCY_agr = per capita income of the rural population engaged in agricultural and fishing activities

POP_rural = rural population

Percent_agr = percentage of rural population engaged in agricultural and fishing activities to the total rural population as estimated from HIECS in the selected years.

MGDI_non-agr= average male non-agricultural income in LE

MPCT_non-agr = percentage of male workers actually engaged in non-agricultural activity in rural areas

FEMGDI_non-agr = average female agricultural income in LE

FEMPCT_agr = percentage of female workers actually engaged in non-agricultural activity in rural areas

PCY_non-agr = income per capita of the rural population not engaged in agriculture and fishing.

Percent_non-agr = percentage of rural population engaged in economic activities other than agricultural and fishing activities to the total rural population as estimated from HIECS in the selected years.

PCY_rural = per capita income in the rural agriculture and rural non-agricultural sectors

MPCY_rural = male per capita income in the rural agriculture and rural non-agricultural sectors

FEMPCY_rural = female per capita income in the rural agriculture and rural non-agricultural sectors

PCY_urban = average per capita income in the urban sector

GDI_agr = total agricultural income in the rural sector at current factors cost estimated by knowing the income shares generated from agricultural activities in HIECS in the relevant years and using this percentage to estimate the GDI of the rural sector.

GDI_non-agr = total non-agricultural income in the rural sector at current factors cost estimated by knowing the income shares generated from non-agricultural activities in HIECS in the relevant years and using this percentage to estimate the GDI of the rural sector.

GDI_rural = total agricultural and non-agriculture rural income in the rural sector at current factors cost

GDI_urban = total income of the urban sector at current factors cost

GDI = gross domestic income of Egypt at current factors cost

POP_urban = population of the urban sector

MGDI_urban = average male income of the urban sector

MPCT_urban = percentage of males who are engaged in activities in urban sector

MPOP_urban = male urban population

FEMGDI_urban = average female income of the urban sector

FEMPCT_urban = percentage of females who are engaged in activities in urban sector

FEMPOP_urban = female urban population

MPCY_urban = average male per capita income in the urban sector

FEMPCY_urban = average female per capita income in the urban sector

MGDI = average income of male Egyptians (rural + urban)

FEMGDI = average income of female Egyptians (rural and urban)

The main idea behind our methodology is that we begin by dividing Egypt’s national income into rural and urban incomes. Rural income is estimated by adding agricultural rural income (which is available through official national statistics) and non-agricultural rural income, which we derive. Urban income is then estimated as a residual, by deducting rural income from national income. In each region, income is then divided between male and female income according to the contribution of each. Gender per capita income is also estimated by dividing each gender’s national income of each region by the population of the gender in the region. The disparity between rural and urban female incomes is finally estimated by relating the two variables.

The following assisting assumptions underlie our methodology:

Urban income is the average income of all working activities in urban Egypt.

Lower and upper Egyptian governorates are considered primar-ily rural governorates, while Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, Suez and the frontier governorates are considered primarily urban governorates.

Income spent on female daughters and spouses are excluded from the estimated female national and per capita incomes.

The final results of our analysis appear in Table 4, while the detailed step-by-step explanation of the methodology and the results of all equations appear in comprehensive Table B1. Tables A1–A4 provide part on the needed data used for the final estimates derived in Table B1.

Table 4.

Estimated Annual Male and Female per Capita Income in Rural and Urban Egypt 1981/2–2013 (ratios in proportions and numbers in millions)

Year	1981/1982	1994/1995	2004/2005	2013
Ratio of female rural per capita to female urban per capita income FEMPCY_rural/FEMPCY_urban	0.16	0.36	0.54	0.43
Ratio of female rural national to female urban national income [FEMGD_Iagr + FEMGD_Inon-agr]/FEMGD_Iurban	0.18	0.45	0.73	0.58
Avg. income of male Egyptians MGDI	17,383	162,259	414,656.8	1,333,655
Avg. income of female Egyptians FEMGDI	2,188.1	31,751	91,854.2	343,697
Ratio of female national income to male national income [FEMGDI_rural + FEMGDI_urban]/[MGDI_rural + MGDI_urban]	0.13	0.20	0.22	0.26
Ratio of male rural to male urban per capita income MPCY_rural/MPCY_urban	0.45	0.60	0.47	0.46
Ratio of national rural to urban (males and females) per capita income PCY_rural/PCY_urban	0.42	0.57	0.49	0.46

Source: Calculated by the author using the previously mentioned equations. See Tables A1–A4 and B1 for a step-by-step derivation of the values of the Table 4.

The main results that appear from the last column of the first row in Table 5 is that there are wide discrepancies between female rural and female urban national and per capita incomes, as female rural per capita income represents only 0.43 of female urban per capita income. In 1981/1982, a rural female earned less than 0.2 of her counterpart in urban Egypt. This ratio witnessed its largest increase in 2004/2005, to reach 0.54, only to fall again to 0.43 in 2013. The result points to two important facts: first, that rural female per capita income never equalized with urban female urban per capita income and, second, that the gap between the two per capita incomes, although converging in the early 2000s, is currently diverging again.

A second important result that can be gleaned from the table is that the disparity in the rural/urban female per capita incomes is very close to the disparity in the rural/urban male per capita income gap, albeit the latter is slightly better (0.46 for males compared to 0.43 for females). However, the male rural/urban income disparity was almost stable from the 1980s until 2013, with the exception of the year 1996, after the adoption of the agricultural liberalization policies in the early 1990s. The rural/urban female per capita gap started by being too wide in the 1980s and improved sluggishly during the last four-decade period.

Focusing on the second row comparing the female rural national income to the female urban national income (rather than per capita incomes), the ratios seem better, rising from 0.18 in 1981/1982, to 0.45 in 1996, to 0.73 in 2004/2005, but falling again to 0.58 in 2013. The same trend of converging and diverging gaps seems to be maintained despite the closer incomes, which imply that female rural national income might be increasing at a faster rate than female urban national income, but not as fast as the rate of increase of the rural female population.

A fourth vital result appears from comparing female (rural and urban) national income with male (rural and urban) national income in Egypt throughout the last four decades (fifth row). In fact, the female national income has grown sluggishly through time, representing only 13 per cent of male national income in 1981/1982, and reaching about 20 per cent in the mid-1990s and 2000s, to rise finally to 26 per cent of male national income in 2013. Despite the rise, an alarming message persists, since female national income still contributes by only one-fourth of the income generated by the male population, even though women represent 49 per cent of Egypt’s population in 2013. In 2013, female national income compared to male national income was largest in the agricultural sector (44% of male income), followed by the urban sector (26% of male income), and, finally, the non-agricultural sector where female contri-bution represented only 17 per cent of male national income in that sector (Table B1). However, taking together all sectors in rural Egypt, female rural national income represented 26 per cent of male rural national income, while female urban national income represented 28 per cent of male urban national income.

Conclusion

The theory of urban bias can find staggering evidence in Egypt. Despite shifts in Egypt’s macroeconomic policies from socialist-inclined policies in the 1960s to more market-oriented policies starting the 1980s and culminating in the adoption of ERSAP in the 1990s, urban bias was maintained throughout most policies, with the impact being more severely felt on female unemployment and income. In the 1960s, implicit taxation of agriculture (Grabowski, 2012) and providing graduates guaranteed employment in public sector employment (Hatem, 1994) represented urban bias policies that may have favoured female urban employment at the expense of female rural employment. On the other hand, shifting macroeconomic policy to more market-oriented policies that ended guaranteed employment and removed some agricultural price distortions left female employment contingent on private sector enterprises, which usually implemented a policy of defeminization by putting barriers to female entry (Assad & Arntz, 2004). At the same time, public investments were more capital-intensive and less oriented to the small enterprises located in the rural areas (Fawzy, 2002; Helmy & Al-Ayouty, 2014), in addition to being located in new remote desert industrial areas which, according to many studies, were difficult for women to commute and join (Assad & Arntz, 2004). Successive Egyptian macroeconomic policies were thus good examples of the theory of urban bias. The result was rising trends of female unemployment in general in Egypt over the period studied, signifying that the increase in the female population was much higher than the rate of job creation.

The picture concerning female unemployment at the governorate level seems somewhat confusing, with official data provided at the pro-vincial or national levels sending some conflicting messages by indicating relatively higher than average female unemployment in some urban gov-ernorates and some rural (especially upper Egyptian) governorates alike. This is mainly due to the methodological issues discussed earlier, namely the standard definition of the ‘employed’ persons (see note 1), which necessitates the inclusion of unpaid family labour as part of the employed labour force in rural Egypt. Another reason may be the definition of the unemployment indicator itself, which demands that the unemployed be searching for a job during the survey week, a phenomenon taking place among the uneducated and less privileged rather than the educated and better off who can afford to wait for government jobs. Nevertheless, the variable concerning the share of the female labour force in total labour force demonstrates how females in the primarily rural governorates of Upper Egypt still represent modest shares compared to other governorates at the end of the study period.

How has this urban bias affected female rural income? From the above analysis, one could presume that the lower female rural labour force share in total labour force, in addition to the lower share of rural female paid labour in rural female labour force, would both result in the notion that female urban income is larger than female rural income. Unfortunately, since no official statistics exist on female rural and female urban incomes, no conclusion on female income can be deduced from the official data.

Accordingly, we attempted in the last section to estimate female rural and urban incomes in Egypt since 1981 until 2013. The methodology conducted begins by dividing Egypt’s national income into rural and urban incomes. Rural income is estimated by adding agricultural rural income and non-agricultural rural income. Urban income is then esti-mated as a residual by deducting rural income from national income. In each region, income is then divided between male and female incomes according to the contribution of each, while gender per capita income is also estimated by dividing each gender’s national income of each region by the population of the gender in the region. Results support the evi-dence that female rural per capita income is much lower than female urban per capita, with the former amounting to only 0.43 of the latter in 2013, albeit rising from 0.2 in 1981. Although this ratio witnessed its largest increase in 2004/2005, to reach 0.54, it decreased again to 0.43 in 2013, reflecting a gap divergence following a temporary convergence. Although the disparity in female rural/urban incomes was much more severe compared to the disparity in male rural/urban incomes in 1981, the two indicators (male and female rural/urban disparities) were close in 2013. The wide female rural/urban income gap was mitigated when national rather than per capita incomes were estimated, as female rural national income amounted to nearly 0.73 of female urban national income, a phenomenon implying that while female rural income was rising faster than female urban income, female rural population was rising faster than female rural income. The striking fact yet remains that despite the modest improvement in female rural income compared to female urban income, female income in general accounts to only one-fourth of male income in Egypt.

In addition to urban bias policies, low shares of women in the labour force, and, subsequently, their low shares in income in Egypt, in general, and rural Egypt in particular, may be attributed to several factors, most important among which are the cultural factors that shaped gender roles in Egypt by assigning the traditional roles of breadwinners to males and child-raising to females. However, other factors have played a role. At the macro level, while the state-led model adopted by Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries in the 1960s and 1970s contributed somewhat to the integration of women in the development of their economies, the transition to more liberal policies in the 1990s, which was meant to expand the role of the private sector at the expense of the public, has added to the marginalization of women (Hatem, 2005). Others argue that low employment levels of women in the paid labour force in Egypt despite rising educational attainment is a result of the economic environ-ment and government policy, which were not conducive to creating working opportunities for women, rather than merely an outcome of conservative ideology (Assad, n.d.). Even with the meagre working opportunities available to women, the study implies that, over the last decades, opportunities were more available to urban rather than to rural women, which was ultimately reflected in higher female urban incomes compared to female rural ones.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Appendix A

Table A4.

Estimation of Working Males and Females Working in Egypt’s Mostly Urban Governorates, 2013

Governorate	No. of Working Males in Urban Egypt in 2013 (in hundreds)	No. of working females in urban Egypt in 2013 (in hundreds)
Cairo	19,173	5,063
Alexandria	9,750	2,325
Port Said	1,513	541
Suez	1,236	303
Red Sea	826	108
New Valley	586	235
Matrouh	910	431
North Sinai	887	248
South Sinai	541	49
Total	35,422	9,303
Percentage of urban working males compared to total males and females		79.1
Percentage of urban working females compared to total males and females		20.9

Source: Excerpts from CAPMAS (2014c), Table 4.3.

Note: Number of men working in non-agriculture or fishing was calculated by sub-tracting the total number of men working in each governorate by the number of men working in agriculture or fishing in the same governorate.

Appendix B

Table B1.

Calculation of Male and Female Rural and Urban per Capita Incomes in Egypt, 1981/1982–2013 (according to equations in text, in millions)

Equation or Variable	1981/1982*	1994/1995	2004/2005	2013
Rural population (POP_rural) (1)	27.038	32.068	39.656	48.416
Male rural population (MPOP_rural) (1.1)	13.925	16.354	20.264	24.741
Female rural population (FEMPOP_rural) (1.2)	13.113	15.714	19.392	23.675
Percentage of population whose main activity is agriculture or fishing relative to population in rural areas (Percent_agr) (2)	0.52	0.38	0.38	0.29
Male workers actually engaged in agricultural activity in rural areas (MPOP_agr) (2.1)	4.028	4.108	4.567	4.459
Female workers actually engaged in agricultural activity in rural areas (FEMPOP_agr) (2.2)	0.098	0.214	1.668	1.967
Population engaged in agricultural activity in rural areas (POP_agr) (3)	14.060	12.186	15.069	14.041
Estimating Equation (1): MGDI_agr = GDI_agr × MPCT_agr
Ave male agricultural income in LE (MGDI_agr) (3.1)	3,653.7	30,447.5	55,188.3	132,429.1
Estimating Equation (2): FEMGDI_agr = GDI_agr × FEMPCT_agr
Ave female agricultural income in LE (FEMGDI_agr) (3.2)	88.7	1,602.5	20,102.7	58,390.9
Agricultural income in LE (GDI_agr) (4)	3,742.4	32,050	75,291	190,820
Estimating Equation (3): PCY_agr = GDI_agr ——— POP_agr (where POP_agr = POP_rural × Percent_agr)
Per capita income in LE of the agricultural sector in rural Egypt (PCY_agr) (5)	266.2	2,630.1	4,996.4	13,590.2
Percentage of the rural population engaged in activities other than agricultural in rural areas (Percent_non-agr) (6)	0.48	0.62	0.62	0.71
Population engaged in non-agricultural activities in rural areas (POP_non-agr) (7)	12.978	19.882	24.587	34.375
Male workers actually engaged in non-agricultural activity in rural areas (MPOP_non-agr) (7.1)	2.195	4.132	8.821	11.093
Female workers actually engaged in non-agricultural activity in rural areas (FEMPOP_non-agr) (7.2)	0.184	0.821	1.554	1.996
Estimated non-agricultural rural income in LE (GDI_non-agr) (8)	3,081.0	50,066.3	123,891.5	445,246.7
Estimating Equation (4): MGDI_non-agr = GDI_non-agr × MPCT_non-agr
Ave male non-agricultural income (MGDI_non-agr) (8.1)	2,842.8	41,805.4	105,307.8	377,569.2
Estimating Equation (5): FEMGDI_agr = GDI_agr × FEMPCT_agr
Ave female non-agricultural income (FEMGDI_non-agr) (8.2)	238.2	8,260.9	18,583.7	67,677.5
Estimating Equation (6): PCY_non-agr = [(GDI_non-agr)/(POP_non-agr)] (where POP_non-agr = POP_rural × Percent_non-agr)
Per capita income in LE of the non-agricultural sector in rural Egypt (PCY_non-agr) (9)	237.4	2,518.2	5,038.9	12,952.6
Estimating Equation (7): PCY_rural = [(PCY_agr × POP_agr) + (PCY_non-agr × POP_non-agr)]/POP_rural (10)	252.4	2,560.7	5,022.8	13,137.5
Estimating Equation (8): MPCY_rural = [(MGDI_agr) + (MGDI_non-agr)]/(MPOP_rural) (10.1)	466.5	4,418.1	7,920.3	20,613.5
Estimating Equation (9): FEMPCY_rural = [(FEMGDI_agr) + (FEMGDI_non-agr)]/(FEMPOP_rural) (10.2)	24.9	627.7	1,995	5,325
Gross domestic income of Egypt at current factors cost in LE (GDI) (11)	19,571.1	191,010	506,511	1,677,352
Income of the rural sector in LE (GDI_rural) (12)	6,823.4	821,16.3	199,182.5	636,066.7
Income of the male rural sector in LE (MGDI_rural) (12.1)	6,496.5	75,252.9	160,496.1	509,998.3
Income of the female rural sector in LE (FEMGDI_rural) (12.2)	326.9	9,863.4	38,686.4	126,068.4
Estimating Equation (10): PCY_urban =
Income of the urban sector in LE (GDI_urban) (13)	12,747.7	108,893.7	307,328.5	1,041,285.3
Population of the urban sector (POP_urban) (14)	21.216	24.276	29.657	36.213
Male urban population (MPOP_urban) (14.1)	10.841	11.895	15.155	18.505
Female urban population (FEMPOP_urban) (14.2)	10.375	12.381	14.502	17.708
Per capita income in the urban sector PCY_urban in LE (15)	600.9	4,485.7	10,362.8	28,754.5
Male workers actually engaged in activities in urban areas (MPOP_act) (16.1)	4.896	6.358	3.172	3.542
Female workers actually engaged in activities in urban areas (FEMPOP_act) (16.2)	0.835	1.596	0.662	0.930
Estimating Equation (11): MGDI_urban = GDI_urban × MPCT_urban
Avg. male income in urban sector in LE (MGDI_urban) (17.1)	10,886.5	87,006.1	254,160.7	823,656.7
Estimating Equation (12): FEMGDI_urban = GDI_urban × FEMPCT_urban
Avg. female income in urban sector in LE (FEMGDI_urban) (17.2)	1,861.2	21,887.6	53,167.8	217,628.6
Estimating Equation (13): MPCY_urban = MGDI_urban/MPOP_urban
Avg. male urban per capita income in LE (MPCY_urban) (18.1)	1,004.2	7,314.5	16,770.8	44,510
Estimating Equation (14): FEMPCY_urban = FEMGDI_urban/FEMPOP_urban
Ave female urban per capita income in LE (FEMPCY_urban) (18.2)	179.4	1,767.8	3,666.2	12,289.9
Estimating Equation (15): MGDI = MGDI_urban + MGDI_rural
Avg. income of male Egyptians MGDI (19.1)	17,383	162,259	414,656.8	1,333,655
Estimating Equation (16): FEMGDI = FEMGDI_urban + FEMGDI_rural
Avg. income of female Egyptians FEMGDI (19.2)	2,188.1	31,751	91,854.2	343,697
Ratio of male rural to male urban per capita income MPCY_rural/MPCY_urban (20.1)	0.45	0.60	0.47	0.46
Estimating Equation (17): Ratio of female rural per capita to female urban per capita income = FEMPCY_rural/FEMPCY_urban
Ratio of female rural per capita to female urban per capita income FEMPCY_rural/FEMPCY_urban (20.2)	0.16	0.36	0.54	0.43
Estimating Equation (18): Ratio of female rural national to female urban national income = [FEMGDI_agr + FEMGDI_non-agr]/FEMGDI_urban
Ratio of female rural national to female urban national income [FEMGDI_agr + FEMGDI_non-agr]/FEMGDI_urban (21)	0.18	0.45	0.73	0.58
Estimating Equation (19): Ratio of female national income to male national income = [FEMGDI_rural + FEMGDI_urban]/[MGDI_rural + MGDI_urban] (22)
Ratio of female national income to male national income = [FEMGDI_rural + FEMGDI_urban]/[MGDI_rural + MGDI_urban] (22)	0.13	0.20	0.22	0.26
Estimating Equation (20): Ratio of national rural to urban (males and females) per capita income PCY_rural/PCY_urban
Ratio of national rural to urban (males and females) per capita income PCY_rural/PCY_urban (23)	0.42	0.57	0.49	0.46

Sources and notes:

(1) CAPMAS, ARE Statistical Yearbook, different issues. It should be noted that aggregate figures on any economic variable in a certain year may be different from the same variable in the same year in another issue of CAPMAS as indicated by the foreword of every publication.

(1.1) and (1.2) CAPMAS, ARE Statistical Yearbook, different issues. According to the 1986 census, the male population amounted to 51.1 per cent of Egypt’s population, while the female population amounted to 48.9 per cent; according to the 1996 census, the male population amounted to 51 per cent of Egypt’s population, while female population amounted to 49 per cent; according to the 2005 census, the male population amounted to 51.1 per cent of Egypt’s population, while female population amounted to 48.9 per cent; in 1 January 2014, the male population amounted to 51.1 per cent of Egypt’s population while female population amounted to 48.9 per cent.

(2) Calculated by the author from CAPMAS, Family Budget Survey (FBS) of 1981/1982 or the Household Income Expenditure and Consumption Surveys (HIECS) of 1994/1995, 2004/2005 and 2012/2013 on the percentage of households engaged in agriculture and fishing relative to all households in the sample. Note that calculating the same variable alternatively from census data gave very close percentages. However, for consistency purposes, we gave preference to estimating it from FBS and HIECS as we will estimate the percentage of agricultural income to total income from the same source.

(2.1) CAPMAS, ARE Statistical Yearbook, different issues. Based on the 1986 and 1996 censuses, males engaged in agricultural and fishing activities in rural areas amounted to 4.028 and 4.108 million, respectively. As the table that showed the distribution of males and females according to economic activity in rural and urban Egypt ceased to exist in later editions of ARE Statistical Yearbooks, we developed an approximate measure to find such variables in rural Egypt by consolidating the mostly rural governorates in one aggregate to represent statistics on rural Egypt (Table A1). As evident from Table A1, in 2006, the number of rural males engaged in agriculture and fishing activities in the mostly rural governorates amounted to 4.567 million. As evident from Table A3, in 2013, the number of males engaged in agricultural and fishing activities in the mostly rural governorates amounted to 4.459 million.

(2.2) CAPMAS, ARE Statistical Yearbook, different issues. Based on the 1986 and 1996 censuses, females engaged in agricultural and fishing activities in rural areas amounted to 0.098 million and 0.214 million, respectively. As the table that showed the distribution of males and females according to economic activity in rural and urban Egypt ceased to exist in later editions of ARE Statistical Yearbooks, we developed an approximate measure to find such variables in rural Egypt by consolidating the mostly rural governorates in one aggregate to represent statistics on rural Egypt. As evident from Table A1, in 2006, the number of rural females engaged in agriculture and fishing activities in the mostly rural governorates amounted to 1.668 million. As evident from Table A3, in 2013, the number of rural females engaged in agricultural and fishing activities in the mostly rural governorates amounted to 1.967 million.

(3) Equals (1) × (2)

(3.1) Obtained by multiplying agricultural income (4) by the percentage of males working in the agricultural sector. Based on the 1986 census, males engaged in agricultural and fishing activities comprised 97.63 per cent of all workers engaged in that sector, 95 per cent in 1996. As the table that showed the distribution of males and females according to economic activity in rural and urban Egypt ceased to exist in later editions of ARE Statistical Yearbooks, we developed an approximate measure to find such variables in rural Egypt by consolidating the mostly rural governorates in one aggregate to represent statistics on rural Egypt. As evident from Table A1, in 2006, the percentage of rural males engaged in agriculture and fishing activities in the mostly rural governorates amounted to 73.3 per cent. As evident from Table A3, in 2013, the percentage of males engaged in agricultural and fishing activities in the mostly rural governorates amounted to 69.4 per cent.

(3.2) Obtained by multiplying agricultural income (4) by the percentage of females working in the agricultural sector. Based on the 1986 census, females engaged in agricultural and fishing activities comprised 2.37 per cent of all workers engaged in that sector, and 5 per cent in 1996. As the table that showed the distribution of males and females according to economic activity in rural and urban Egypt ceased to exist in later editions of ARE Statistical Yearbooks, we developed an approximate measure to find such variables in rural Egypt by consolidating the mostly rural governorates in one aggregate to represent statistics on rural Egypt. As evident from Table A1, in 2006, the percentage of rural females engaged in agriculture and fishing activities in the mostly rural governorates amounted to 26.7 per cent. As evident from Table A3, in 2013, the percentage of females engaged in agricultural and fishing activities in the mostly rural governorates amounted to 30.6 per cent.

(4) CAPMAS, ARE Statistical Yearbook, different issues on of agricultural income at current factors cost.

(5) Equals (4)/(3)

(6) Equals (1) – (2)

(7) Equals (6) × (1)

(7.1) CAPMAS, ARE Statistical Yearbook, different issues. The figures were obtained by subtracting the total number of males working in agriculture and fishing from the total number of males working in rural areas. Based on the 1986 and 1996 censuses, males engaged in non-agricultural and fishing activities in rural areas amounted to 2.195 and 4.132 million, respectively. As the table that showed the distribution of males and females according to economic activity in rural and urban Egypt ceased to exist in later editions of ARE Statistical Yearbooks, we developed an approximate measure to find such variables in rural Egypt by consolidating the mostly rural governorates in one aggregate to represent statistics on rural Egypt. As evident from Table A1, in 2006, the number of rural males engaged in non-agriculture and fishing activities in the mostly rural governorates amounted to 8.821 million. As evident from Table A3, in 2013, the number of males engaged in non-agricultural and fishing activities in the mostly rural governorates amounted to 11.093 million.

(7.2) ARE Statistical Yearbook, different issues. The figures were obtained by subtracting the total number of females working in agriculture and fishing from the total number of males working in rural areas. Based on the 1986 and 1996 censuses, females engaged in non-agricultural and fishing activities in rural areas amounted to 0.184 and 0.821 million, respectively. As the table that showed the distribution of males and females according to economic activity in rural and urban Egypt ceased to exist in later editions of ARE Statistical Yearbooks, we developed an approximate measure to find such variables in rural Egypt by consolidating the mostly rural governorates in one aggregate to represent statistics on rural Egypt. As evident from Table A1, in 2006, the number of rural females engaged in non-agriculture and fishing activities in the mostly rural governorates amounted to 1.554 million. As evident from Table A3, in 2013, the number of males engaged in non-agricultural and fishing activities in the mostly rural governorates amounted to 1.996 million.

(8) The rural non-agricultural income was estimated by knowing the income shares generated from non-agricultural activities in the household surveys and using this percentage to estimate the GDI of the rural sector. According to FBS and HIECS surveys, expenditure from households whose main activities was agriculture and fishing compared to total household expenditure in rural Egypt amounted to 54.8 per cent in 1981/1982, 39 per cent in 1995/1996, 37.8 per cent in 2004/2005, and 30 per cent in 2011/2012.

For example, if agricultural GDI was 75,291 million in 2004/2005 and the income generated from agricultural activities was 37.8 per cent, according to HIECS then the total rural GDI would be (LE 75,291 million × 100)/37.8 = LE 199,182.5 million. Rural non-agricultural income would then be equal to LE 199,182.5 million – LE 75,291 million = LE 123,891.5 million.

(8.1) Obtained by multiplying non-agricultural income (8) by the percentage of males working in the non-agricultural sector. Based on the 1986 census, males engaged in agricultural and fishing activities comprised 92.27 per cent of all workers engaged in that sector, 83.5 per cent in 1996. As the table that showed the distribution of males and females according to economic activity in rural and urban Egypt ceased to exist in later editions of ARE Statistical Yearbooks, we developed an approximate measure to find such variables in rural Egypt by consolidating the mostly rural governorates in one aggregate to represent statistics on rural Egypt. As evident from Table A1, in 2006, the percentage of rural males engaged in non-agriculture and fishing activities in the mostly rural governorates amounted to 85 per cent. As evident from Table A3, in 2013, the percentage of males engaged in non-agricultural and fishing activities in the mostly rural governorates amounted to 84.8 per cent.

(8.2) Obtained by multiplying non-agricultural income (8) by the percentage of females working in the non-agricultural sector. Based on the 1986 census, females engaged in non-agricultural and fishing activities comprised 7.73 per cent of all workers engaged in that sector, and 16.5 per cent in 1996. As the table that showed the distribution of males and females according to economic activity in rural and urban Egypt ceased to exist in later editions of ARE Statistical Yearbooks, we developed an approximate measure to find such variables in rural Egypt by consolidating the mostly rural governorates in one aggregate to represent statistics on rural Egypt. As evident from Table A1, in 2006, the percentage of rural females engaged in non-agriculture and fishing activities in the mostly rural governorates amounted to 15 per cent. As evident from Table A3, in 2013, the percentage of females engaged in agricultural and fishing activities in the mostly rural governorates amounted to 15.2 per cent.

(9) Equals (8)/(7).

(10) Equals [(5) × (3) + (9) × (7)]/(1)

(10.1) Equals [(3.1) + (8.1)]/1.1)

(10.2) Equals [(3.2) + (8.2)]/(1.2)

(11) CAPMAS, ARE Statistical Yearbook, different issues on national income at current factors cost.

(12) Equals (4) + (8)

(12.1) Equals (3.1) + (8.1)

(12.2) Equals (3.2) + (8.2)

(13) Equals (11) – (12)

(14) CAPMAS, ARE Statistical Yearbook, different issues.

(14.1) and (14.2) CAPMAS, ARE Statistical Yearbook, different issues. According to the 1986 census, male population amounted to 51.1 per cent of Egypt’s population while female population amounted to 48.9 per cent. According to the 1996 census, male population amounted to 51 per cent of Egypt’s population, while female population amounted to 49 per cent. According to the 2006 census, male population amounted to 51.1 per cent of Egypt’s population, while female population amounted to 48.9 per cent. In 1 January 2014 census, male population amounted to 51.1 per cent of Egypt’s population, while female population amounted to 48.9 per cent. The respective percentages were then multiplied by the population of the urban areas (14)

(15) Equals (13)/(14)

(16.1) CAPMAS, ARE Statistical Yearbook, different issues. Based on the 1986 and 1996 censuses, males engaged in activities in urban areas amounted to 4.896 and 6.358 million, respectively. As the table that showed the distribution of males and females according to economic activity in rural and urban Egypt ceased to exist in later editions of ARE Statistical Yearbooks, we developed an approximate measure to find such variables in rural Egypt by consolidating the mostly urban governorates in one aggregate to represent statistics on urban Egypt. As evident from Table A2, in 2006, the number of urban males engaged in activities in the mostly urban governorates amounted to 3.172 million. As evident from Table A4, in 2013, the number of males engaged in activities in the mostly urban governorates amounted to 3.542 million.

(16.2) CAPMAS, ARE Statistical Yearbook, different issues. Based on the 1986 and 1996 censuses, females engaged in activities in urban areas amounted to 0.835 and 1.596 million, respectively. As the table that showed the distribution of males and females according to economic activity in rural and urban Egypt ceased to exist in later editions of ARE Statistical Yearbooks, we developed an approximate measure to find such variables in rural Egypt by consolidating the mostly urban governorates in one aggregate to represent statistics on urban Egypt (Tables A2 and A4). As evident from Table A2, in 2006, the number of urban females engaged in activities in the mostly urban governorates amounted to 0.662 million. As evident from Table A4, in 2013, the number of females engaged in activities in the mostly urban governorates amounted to 0.930 million.

(17.1) Obtained by multiplying income of the urban sector (13) by the percentage of males working in the urban sector. Based on the 1986 census, males engaged in activities comprised 85.4 per cent of all workers engaged in that sector, 79.9 per cent in 1996. As the table that showed the distribution of males and females according to economic activity in rural and urban Egypt ceased to exist in later editions of ARE Statistical Yearbooks, we developed an approximate measure to find such variables in rural Egypt by consolidating the mostly rural governorates in one aggregate to represent statistics on urban Egypt (Tables A2 and A3). As evident from Table A2, in 2006, the percentage of urban males engaged in activities in the mostly urban governorates amounted to 82.7 per cent. As evident from Table A4, in 2013, the percentage of males engaged in activities in the mostly urban governorates amounted to 79.1 per cent.

(17.2) Obtained by multiplying income of the urban sector (13) by the percentage of females working in the urban sector. Based on the 1986 census, females engaged in activities comprised 14.6 per cent of all workers engaged in that sector, 20.1 per cent in 1996. As the table that showed the distribution of males and females according to economic activity in rural and urban Egypt ceased to exist in later editions of ARE Statistical Yearbooks, we developed an approximate measure to find such variables in rural Egypt by consolidating the mostly rural governorates in one aggregate to represent statistics on urban Egypt (Tables A2 and A4). As evident from Table A2, in 2006, the percentage of urban females engaged in activities in the mostly urban governorates amounted to 17.3 per cent. As evident from Table A4, in 2013, the percentage of females engaged in activities in the mostly urban governorates amounted to 20.9 per cent.

(18.1) Equals (17.1)/(14.1)

(18.2) Equals (17.2)/(14.2)

(19.1) Equals (17.1) + (12.1)

(19.2) Equals (17.2) + (12.2)

(20.1) Equals (10.1)/(18.1)

(20.2) Equals (10.2)/(18.2)

(21) Equals [(3.2) + (8.2)]/(17.2)

(22) Equals [(3.2) + (8.2) + (17.2)]/[(3.1) + (8.1) + (17.1)]

(23) Equals (10)/(15)

Note

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