Series information
The 2009 Survey of Young People in Egypt (SYPE) generated a unique source of data on the situation of youth in Egypt, covering a broad set of areas crucial to the transition to adulthood, including education, employment, migration, health, family formation, social issues, and civic and political participation. Given the unprecedented series of political changes that have occurred in Egypt since 2009, the Population Council designed and implemented the second wave of SYPE in 2014 in order to observe how Egyptian young people have been faring following this transitional period. The Population Council, in partnership with the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), collected the second round of data for the Survey of Young People in Egypt (SYPE) in 2013/2014, which re-interviewed the same sample of young people that were interviewed in 2009.
Abstract
<p style="border:solid thin black;"> SYPE 2014 IS A HARMONIZED-PANEL DATA SET WITH SYPE 2009 </p>
The five years that have passed since the Population Council's Survey of Young People in Egypt of 2009 (SYPE 2009) have proved to be a tumultuous period for the country. The year 2011 marked a historic year for Egyptian youth, as young people from around the country took an active role in the January 25 revolution.
Through their activism in early 2011, Egypt's young revolutionaries gained a platform to denounce their social and political marginalization, and demand their rights to freedom, justice, equality, and opportunity.
This unprecedented voice for Egypt's youth pointed a national spotlight on many of the challenges that were found in the 2009 SYPE, including an educational system unresponsive to youth needs, difficult employment conditions, low civic and political engagement, and a social environment that denies youth access to essential information about their transition to adulthood.
Since 2011, Egypt has undergone several political fluctuations and changes of power, with civil unrest and continued protests marking many events during the transition. Furthermore, the past four years have proven costly to Egypt's economic well-being and the labor market. Post-revolutionary political instability has resulted in the widespread divestment of foreign-owned firms, the declining value of the Egyptian pound, and a looming debt crisis the Egyptian state is still struggling to avoid. The tumultuous climate has resulted in an enormous drop in revenues for particular economic sectors, such as tourism. Moreover, the return of large numbers of migrants from Libya and other countries in the region affected by the “Arab Spring” has also negatively affected the Egyptian labor market.
This post-revolutionary economic stagnation is expected to have resulted in a steady deterioration of job quality and increasing employment informality, in the context of labor market conditions that were already difficult for young entrants. Such economic challenges could not come at a worse time for Egypt's youth.
Like other countries in the region, Egypt is currently experiencing a demographic “youth bulge,” meaning that the population of young people is significantly larger than other age groups. Although more highly educated than previous generations, this population of young people has struggled to achieve economic stability. Even prior to the 2011 uprisings, Egypt's youth constituted an estimated 90% of the country's unemployed.
It is therefore vital to question how Egypt's youth are now faring in a significantly more unfavorable economic climate, and whether they are able to access the professional opportunities needed to work toward economic independence and complete key life transitions such as getting married and starting a family. At the same time, the transitional period may have opened up new opportunities to youth in other areas of life, most notably deeper engagement with media, politics, and civic life. Such questions regarding youth employment and civic participation in the current tumultuous era, along with potential changes in the institutions and decisions that shape the transition to adulthood, such as health and access to health care, quality of education, migration, marriage, and youth attitudes and life outlooks, are what this report seeks to better understand.
The 2009 Survey of Young People in Egypt (SYPE) was fielded in May 2009 and collected data on several key areas of interest to youth, including education, employment, migration, health, family formation, social issues, and civic and political participation. In order to observe how young people have been faring during the transition period in Egypt in comparison to 2009, the Population Council designed the second wave of SYPE in 2014, which re-interviewed the same sample of young people who were interviewed in 2009. This yields a panel data set that spans the periods before and after the January 25, 2011 revolution, and that is nationally representative for both time periods.
The data collected for SYPE 2009 was harmonized, by the Economic Research Forum (ERF) Data Team, with SYPE 2014 to produce a comparable and harmonized version of the data set to facilitate cross-temporal research.