Gender, Sibship and Education in Egypt

This paper examines the relationship between gender, sibship and education over time in Egypt using demographic and health survey data from 2000, 2005 and 2008. While the gender gap in education in Egypt narrowed considerably, it is unclear whether parents still discriminate against girls when their resources are constrained such as in the context of large families. There is extensive literature on the negative association between sibsize and education. However, such research often fails to examine how the impact of sibship varies by the gender configuration of siblings and the child’s gender. While women’s education and women’s age at first marriage have increased, patriarchy still affects the lives of many Egyptian girls. The expansion of the education system in Egypt coupled with high fertility put tremendous strain on an already overburdened education system. This study shows that sibsize has a consistently negative and significant effect on conditional grade progression ratios; however, its effect is stronger for girls than boys. The negative effect of the number of brothers on a child’s education is consistently stronger than that of the number of sisters. The impact of the number of younger brothers is especially pronounced in the case of girls’ education.