Economic Research Forum (ERF)

Maye Ehab

Author

Maye Ehab
Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg and University of Bamberg, Germany

Maye Ehab is currently a Doctoral Fellow at the Bamberg Graduate School of Social Sciences and a Research Associate at the chair of Sociology, especially Methods of Empirical Social Research at the University of Bamberg. Ehab received an MA in Economics from the American University in Cairo in 2010 and received her Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the Faculty of Economics and Political Science in Cairo University in 2008. Ehab held a number of positions with the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies in Cairo, the Egyptian Competition Authority, El-Watan Research and was a Visiting Fellow with UNCTAD at the Division on Investment and Enterprise in Geneva. Maye’s areas of interest are Gender economics, Labor Market Outcomes and Policy Analysis. Her latest publications are around topics of the gender gap and female participation, geographical mobility, as well as job quality and health outcomes in the Egyptian Labor Market.

Content by this Author

Egypt’s care economy needs to address deteriorating working conditions

A robust and high-quality care economy is critical for supporting women’s employment – as both an employer of women and a mechanism for redistributing unpaid care work to the market. Yet in Egypt, despite national goals of expanding care services, employment in the sector has been shrinking, while becoming increasingly privatised. As this column reports, care jobs have also experienced worsening conditions of work, including reduced formality and the emergence of a pay penalty for care workers.

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Empowering Egypt’s young people for the future of work

Egypt’s most urgent priority is creating more and better jobs for its growing youth population. This column reports on the first Development Dialogue, an ERF–World Bank joint initiative, which brought together students, scholars, policy-makers and private sector leaders at Cairo University to confront the country’s labour market challenge. The conversation explored why youth inclusion matters, what the data show and how dialogue and the forthcoming Country Economic Memorandum can inform practical pathways to accelerate job creation.

Preparing youth for the workforce of the future

As economies undergo rapid digital and green transformations, young people face a growing mismatch between their skills and what the modern labour market needs. This column argues that enabling youth to compete in the workforce of the future requires systemic reforms in education, skills formation and labour market institutions, especially in developing economies.

Connectivity and conflict: understanding the risks of inequality in the Middle East

While high inequality does not always lead to conflict, new research reported in this column shows that widespread internet access acts as a catalyst, transforming economic grievances into political instability. For policy-makers in the Middle East and North Africa, this means that as digital connectivity expands, the security costs of ignoring economic disparities rise dramatically. The combination of idle youth, high inequality and high-speed internet is a volatile mix.

The political economy of stalled structural reforms in MENA

There is a persistent pattern to the structural reforms that are required to underpin economic progress in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa: ambitious strategies are announced and partially implemented, but ultimately they are diluted or reversed. This column argues that the repeated stalling of reform is not primarily a failure of economic design. Rather, it reflects deep-seated political economy constraints rooted in rent dependence, elite bargaining and weak institutional credibility. Without addressing these underlying dynamics, reform efforts are likely to remain symbolic rather than transformative.

Closing the gender gap in political participation in MENA

Women across the Middle East and North Africa participate less than men in politics – not only in political parties and elections, but also in petitions, boycotts, protests and strikes. This column reports evidence from ten countries showing that differences in education, employment and political attitudes explain part of this disparity, yet a significant gender gap remains.




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