The Youth of Egypt
p. 60-61
Texte intégral
26.8% | 34% | 25 years | 2016 |
of the population between 15 and 29 years of age in 2017 | of 15-24 year-olds unemployed in 2017 | minimum age for candidates in parliamentary elections since 2012 | “Year of Egyptian Youth” declared by President Sisi |
Sources: World Bank; CAPMAS |
1Youth can be defined in different ways: the UN proposes the 15-24 year-old age group; for CAPMAS it is 15-29 years: the Mubarak housing programme for youth (2000) was aimed at 25-40 year-olds. Aside from any restricted statistical approach, the social category of “youth” covers individuals of varying opinions and socio-economic situations. This section of society has grabbed the attention of political stakeholders, the media and political institutions since the 1980s because of its sheer size (61% of the population was under 30 years of age in 2017), and because it has increasingly been attracted to Islamist movements. The dominant narrative regarding the youth has mixed hope with concern, wavering between the youth as a vector for change and progress, and the youth in crisis tempted by emigration, delinquency, social and political activism, and, since the revolutionary upsets of 2011, the youth in the grip of disillusionment.
Unemployment and the pull of emigration
2According to the World Bank, unemployment among the 15-24 year-old age group grew from 26.3% in 1991 to 34.4% in 2017. Figures from CAPMAS note that the number of youths reaching working age grows by 3.1% per annum, whereas employment increases annually by 0.9%. Unemployment delays marriage, which marks the transition into adult life, because of the financial cost: generally the groom provides fully equipped housing, and the bride brings crockery and soft furnishings.
3More than a third of unemployed youths are university graduates (37%), which reflects the problems of higher education in Egypt: insufficient clarity in education goals, inadequate training for the local and international employment market, and deficiencies in scholarly research and in innovation. This situation has encouraged many youth to pursue university studies abroad, although the high cost of accommodation and university fees remains a serious obstacle for students of the middle classes. Access to grants for such students is not easy.
4According to a report compiled by the Population Council (SYPE 2015), a growing number of young people no longer target employment in the public sector because of the low pay rates, and they prefer to work in the private sector or set up their own business: others look for a job with a steady income to be complemented by another activity.
5The deterioration of the economic situation after 2011, lack of opportunity and disappointment after the restoration of authoritarian control has heightened the desire for emigration among the young. CAPMAS (2013) reports that 70% of emigrants are aged from 20 to 30 years, and are primarily male. Repressive policies targeting young activists and members of the Muslim Brotherhood have encouraged departure, especially towards Turkey for the latter category.
From engagement to disenchantment
6The first student movements arose in 1968 (against the Nasser regime), then again in 1972, mostly driven by left-wing activists and also, from the 1980s, by Islamists. While the decade of the 1990s witnessed collective mobilisation in support of civil rights and society, the 2000s were marked by youth movements promoting democratic change outside the two main existing structures, the NDP and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Kefaya (“Enough”) movement in 2004 represented a stage in the creation of a non-partisan form of activism. In 2008, the April 6 Youth Movement, which launched a “Stay at home” strike, denounced the restrictions of basic freedoms, the NDP strategy of preparing the succession of Gamal Mubarak, and policy choices responsible for the decline in the standard of living. The use of new media helped mobilisation, for example, the Facebook group “We are all Khaled Said” set up after the death of the young Alexandrian man in June 2010.
7The urban youth played a leading role in the revolution of 25 January 2011, whether from the April 6 Movement, young Muslim Brothers, independent activists or youth supporters of Mohamed al-Baradei’s campaign. Youth engagement was also important outside activist groups, and occasionally continued within a number of parties, such as the Youth of Tahrir Party and the Coalition of Revolutionary Youth.
8The “Tahrir Generation”, which had experienced moments of elation and hope, was swiftly disillusioned by policies marginalising the youth under Morsi, then the violent clearing of Rabaa Square (August 2013), and the suppression of opposition voices, especially on university campuses, that began in autumn of 2013. The arrest and jailing of activists, the shrinking of political space and of the possibilities for action led to a withdrawal from the political arena. On campus, students endeavoured to preserve the “spirit of Tahrir” by documenting the episodes and recording the lived revolutionary experiences as a reposte to the untrustworthy official rewriting of this historic event.
9President Sisi reinstated the youth into the political agenda and his speeches, and increased meetings with the young through conferences and youth forums (e.g. at Sharm al-Sheikh in December 2018). In the face of a youth that is perceived as distant and challenging, the regime has tried to spread the values of authority, patriotism and discipline, so dear to the army, through revising academic textbooks and regulations.
3.15 President Sisi amidst young people during an economic development conference, 2015

© Khaled Desouki / AFP, 15 March 2015
3.16 Young people in a downtown Cairo café. On the wall is a painting of the football player Mohamed Salah, April 2018

© Amir Makar / AFP, 4 April 2018
Auteur
Rehab Sakr, assistant professor, department of political science, faculty of economics and political science, University of Cairo, post-doc with the CEDEJ en 2018
Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Licence OpenEdition Books. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
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