Caroline Krafft and Reham Rizk
Entrepreneurship is promoted as a solution to high rates of youth unemployment around the world and especially in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This paper investigates…
Abstract
Purpose
Entrepreneurship is promoted as a solution to high rates of youth unemployment around the world and especially in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This paper investigates the potential for youth entrepreneurship to alleviate unemployment, focusing on Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors examine who entrepreneurs are (in comparison to the unemployed), using multinomial logit models. The authors compare entrepreneurs' and wage workers' working conditions and earnings. They exploit panel data to assess earnings and occupational dynamics. They specifically use the Labor Market Panel Surveys of 2012 (Egypt), 2016 (Jordan), and 2014 (Tunisia), along with previous waves.
Findings
The authors find that entrepreneurs are the opposite of the unemployed in MENA. The unemployed are disproportionately young, educated and women. Entrepreneurs are older, less educated and primarily men. Entrepreneurship does not generally lead to higher earnings and does have fewer benefits.
Originality/value
Promoting youth entrepreneurship is not only unlikely to be successful in reducing youth unemployment in MENA, but also, if successful, may even be harmful to youth.
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Irene Selwaness and Rania Roushdy
The purpose of this paper is to examine the school-to-work transition of young people from subsequent school exit cohorts between 2001 and 2012 in Egypt, thus, presenting an early…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the school-to-work transition of young people from subsequent school exit cohorts between 2001 and 2012 in Egypt, thus, presenting an early evidence on the adjustments of the labor market in terms of patterns of youth transition to a first job following the 2011 Egyptian uprising.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis compares the early employment outcomes of those who left school after the January 25, 2011 uprising to that of those who left before 2011. The authors also separately control for the cohorts who left school in 2008 and 2009, in an attempt to disentangle any labor market adjustments that might have happened following the financial crisis, and before the revolution. Using novel and unexploited representative data from the 2014 Survey of Young People in Egypt (SYPE), the authors estimate the probability of transition to any first job within 18 months from leaving education and that of the transition to a good-quality job, controlling for the year of school exit. The authors also estimate the hazard of finding a first job and a good-quality job using survival analysis.
Findings
School exit cohorts of 2008–2009 (following the financial crisis) and those of 2011–2012 (in the aftermath of the 2011 uprisings) experienced a significantly higher likelihood of finding a first job within 18 months than that of the cohorts of 2001–2007. However, this came at the expense of the quality of job, conditional on having found a first job. The results of the hazard model show that school leavers after 2008 who were not able to transition to a job shortly after leaving school experienced longer unemployment spells than their peers who left school before 2007. The odds of finding a good-quality job appears to decline with time spent in non-employment or in a bad-quality first job.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to a limited, yet growing, literature on how school-to-work transition evolved during the global financial crisis and the Egyptian 2011 revolution. Using data from SYPE 2014, the most recent representative survey conducted in Egypt on youth and not previously exploited to study youth school-to-work transition, the paper investigates the short-term adjustments of the youth labor market opportunities during that critical period of Egypt and the region’s history.
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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate opportunities for early childhood development (ECD) regarding children’s prenatal care, access to nutrition, health, parental care and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate opportunities for early childhood development (ECD) regarding children’s prenatal care, access to nutrition, health, parental care and cognitive-developmental activities, in 33 surveys from 13 countries. A total of 15 indicators for children’s opportunities are assessed including their typical level, inequality across demographic groups, and factors responsible.
Design/methodology/approach
Probability regressions estimate the effects of various household circumstances on children’s engagement in development opportunities. Dissimilarity indexes and human opportunity indexes are computed for each ECD dimension. To understand the impact of each household characteristic, Shorrocks-Shapley decomposition is performed.
Findings
ECD opportunities are poor but improving and becoming more equal across many countries. Progress is uneven. As may be expected, household wealth affects inequality for ECD opportunities facilitated by markets or governments, but not non-market opportunities. For preventive healthcare and preschool enrollment, access is deteriorating, reflecting low priority given to them in public policy. Children’s height falls behind in the first two years of children’s life, suggesting the need for targeted institutional interventions. Surprisingly, countries experiencing uprisings see conditions improving, while other Arab countries see them stagnating or deteriorating.
Originality/value
Local and national policy should tackle the identified opportunity gaps. Policymakers should allocate proper investment in medical and educational infrastructure and better coordinate support for disadvantaged families to ensure proper prenatal and ECD. International organizations should provide assistance with these programs.
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Mesbah Fathy Sharaf and Ahmed Shoukry Rashad
This study aims to analyze whether precarious employment is associated with youth mental health, self-rated health and happiness in marriage and whether this association differs…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyze whether precarious employment is associated with youth mental health, self-rated health and happiness in marriage and whether this association differs by sex.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses longitudinal data from the Survey of Young People in Egypt conducted in 2009 and 2014 and estimates a fixed-effects model to control for time-invariant unobserved individual heterogeneity. The analysis is segregated by sex.
Findings
The results indicate that precarious employment is significantly associated with poor mental health and less happiness in marriage for males and is positively associated with poor self-reported health for females. The adverse impact of precarious work is likely to be mediated through poor working conditions such as low salary, maltreatment at work, job insecurity and harassment from colleagues.
Social implications
Governmental policies that tackle job precariousness are expected to improve population health and marital welfare.
Originality/value
Egypt has witnessed a significant increase in the prevalence of precarious employment, particularly among youth, in recent decades, yet the evidence on its effect on the health and well-being of youth workers is sparse. This paper adds to the extant literature by providing new evidence on the social and health repercussions of job precariousness from an understudied region.
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Asmaa Ezzat and Maye Ehab
This paper aims to analyze the determinants on job satisfaction in the Egyptian labor market, using Egypt’s Labor Market Panel Survey (ELMPS), the wave of 2012.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze the determinants on job satisfaction in the Egyptian labor market, using Egypt’s Labor Market Panel Survey (ELMPS), the wave of 2012.
Design/methodology/approach
Several determinants are analyzed including the wage level, the paid and sick leaves, the medical and social insurance, job stability among other individual and job characteristics. To this end, an ordered logit model is estimated to assess the significance of these different variables as determinants for job satisfaction.
Findings
The empirical findings indicate that wages and stability are major determinants for job satisfaction for the sample of wage workers. However, the results change according to gender; the hourly wage level affects men’s level of job satisfaction, while it does not affect that of females. Furthermore, the job satisfaction of women is determined more by the job characteristics rather than the monetary compensation.
Social implications
The empirical findings shed light on the importance of formalizing jobs, as it has an effect on the level of job satisfaction of both women and men.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the determinants of job satisfaction for wage workers in Egypt using the ELMPS data.
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Caroline Hussler, Julien Pénin, Michael Dietrich and Thierry Burger‐Helmchen
The purpose of this paper is to argue for the need to reconcile managerial and economic approaches of the firm. Strategic management seems to be the perfect playground for this.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to argue for the need to reconcile managerial and economic approaches of the firm. Strategic management seems to be the perfect playground for this.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper shows many divergences between the economic and managerial approach of the firm but also highlights many topics where both approaches come in handy.
Findings
The authors underline the topics and theories in strategic management with the greatest benefits of mixing economics and management can be expected and they echo the papers in this special issue.
Practical implications
The paper comes as a warning for those using only managerial perspective without listening to the caveats and ideas put forward by the economic approach of the firm.
Originality/value
The paper offers an agenda of how economics and management could be reunited, and shows the relevance of doing so to both theory and practice.
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Valentine Weydert, Pierre Desmet and Caroline Lancelot-Miltgen
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how offering control on data usage and offering money can increase willingness to share private information with a data broker.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how offering control on data usage and offering money can increase willingness to share private information with a data broker.
Design/methodology/approach
Personal data are collected for internet users with a Web questionnaire. In an experimental framework, compensations control money are manipulated and consumers’ data sharing is explained by sensitivity and regulatory focus.
Findings
Offering control increases willingness to disclose personal data, even sensitive one, but the effect is not moderated by regulatory focus. Offering monetary compensation has a negative, but small, effect on willingness to share personal data, and the effect is moderated by regulatory focus.
Originality/value
Offering a large amount of money is a double-edged offer, as it creates a signal that increases potential negative effect of disclosing personal data to unknown third party.
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Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are…
Abstract
Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.