TRANSITIONS TO EMPLOYMENT AND MARRIAGE AMONG YOUNG MEN IN EGYPT

Ragui Assaad (), Christine Binzel and May Gadallah ()
Additional contact information
May Gadallah: Cairo University, Egypt

Middle East Development Journal (MEDJ), 2010, vol. 02, issue 01, 39-88

Abstract: We examine in this paper the transition from school to work and the transition to marriage among young men with at least a secondary education in Egypt, with particular attention to how the first transition affects the second. In examining the transition from school to work, we analyze the determinants of the duration of transition to first employment after school completion, as well as the type and quality of job obtained in such employment. We then move to an examination of the determinants of further mobility to a second job. In examining the transition to marriage, we investigate the effect of time to the first job and the time to the first good job, if any, on the timing of marriage, controlling for cohort of birth, education, family background and community-level variables. We find that the duration of transition to first employment has fallen over time, primarily because of the reduced availability of formal employment, especially public employment, making it less worthwhile for young men to remain jobless searching for such employment. Having access to work in a family enterprise reduces significantly the duration of transition from school to work as does the need to be the main breadwinner of the family. While education beyond the secondary level has no significant effect on the duration of the transition, it does significantly affect the probability of getting a good job and a formal job, as a first job. The hazard of transition to a second job is negatively associated with the time it takes to get a first job, but that is primarily because it is negatively associated with the quality of the first job and the fact that it takes longer to get good first jobs. Our findings relating to the transition to marriage confirm both the importance of early entry into the job market and of obtaining good jobs for early transition into marriage. However, if delayed entry (due to search) raises the hazard of getting a good job, it may actually be a worthwhile strategy, from the point of view of curbing the delay in marriage, for an individual to spend more time in job search.

Keywords: Transition from school to work; timing of marriage; youth; Egypt (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S1793812010000162
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:medjxx:v:02:y:2010:i:01:n:s1793812010000162

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

DOI: 10.1142/S1793812010000162

Access Statistics for this article

Middle East Development Journal (MEDJ) is currently edited by Lyn Squire

More articles in Middle East Development Journal (MEDJ) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().