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“My right? What right?” New Study Sheds Light on Women’s Unpaid Work in Egypt

April 9, 2016
Women in al-Awna village in the Egyptian province of Assiout. Photo: Aswat Masriya

By Omnia Talal Illiterate, poor and concentrated in Egypt’s south, or Upper Egypt, they mostly work at small projects or on agricultural land owned by their families: These are Egyptian women who carry out unpaid work and who constitute 46 percent of Egyptian women working for family-owned businesses, according to a study released in April. Written by economic researcher Salwa Antari based on field research conducted by Nafissa Dessouky, the study, “Women’s unpaid work in the market: Working for the family,” shows that this figure has increased by 17 percentage points in the past 14 years. Working for the family without pay constitutes the key form of women’s work in the informal sector in Egypt, Antari wrote in the study. “They had no choice but accept this work, as a result of the prevailing culture that rejects the concept of women leaving their homes for paid work,” she added. While women’s unpaid work in family-owned land or businesses grew from 29 percent in 1998 to 46.4 percent in 2012, the already small percentage of men’s unpaid work for the family decreased further, going down from 13.2 percent in 1998 to 7.4…


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