Deregulation of the economy and the problems of
unemployment and migration
According to the World Bank the total labour force in Egypt was 24 million
persons in 1999, 30 per cent of whom were women (World Bank 2001: 278).
As the number of those employed in that year was 17.434 million (Ministry
of Information 2001a), the employment/labour force ratio was 72.6 per cent,
which means that the unemployment rate was 27.4 per cent. It has to be
noted in this context that the unemployment rate among women is 2.5 times
that of men, and that in general unemployment is greater among high school
and university graduates than among the rest of the population. Vocational
training and manual work being of low social prestige among certain sectors
of Egyptian society, many young people in the country find themselves in
a dilemma. Unemployment, one of the country’s great problems, is a con-
sequence especially of the change from the long-established state-controlled
economy, in which every university graduate had to be employed by the
state.