The Arab Spring constitutes perhaps the most far-reaching political and economic transition since the end of communism in Europe. For too long, the economic aspirations of the people in the region, especially young people, have been ignored by leaders in Arab countries and abroad. Competing views as to how best to meet these aspirations are now being debated in the region. The outcome will shape Arab societies for generations to come.
The authors of this book argue that significant economic reforms must accompany the major political transitions that are underway. Although each country has a different economic structure and history and must make its own way forward, there are spill-overs from trade and investment linkages, the contagion of news cycles, interaction of people and sharing of expectations that are too great to ignore. Some common foundation of the new Arab economies is needed. Towards that end, this volume addresses four central challenges of economic reform in the Arab world. First, with two-thirds of the population under the age of 30, the disproportionate burdens of unemployment and poor education can no longer be heaped on youth. Second, while some government policies may have improved the living standards of Arab citizens in the past, they have also entrenched cronies, enriched a small elite, and become unaffordable. Third, if Arab economies are to compete in the 21st century they cannot depend solely on oil and gas money, remittances, and tourism, but will require active, independent private sectors. And finally, the relative isolation of Arab economies--both from each other and from the world--must end.
Rather than providing specific lists of recommendations, this book sets forth a set of guidelines and priorities for reformers who will begin creating new opportunities for youth, rebuilding the institutions of the state, diversifying the private sector, and cooperating with each other and integrating with the world economy.

Jordan stands in the middle of a turbulent region, experiencing substantial refugee flows and economic challenges due to the conflict and insecurity of its neighbors. The Jordanian Labor Market: Between Fragility and Resilience fills an enormous gap in our knowledge regarding the region's labor market during a period of substantial instability and new challenges for Jordan. Prior to the refugee crisis the Jordanian economy and labor market had been shifting in a positive direction. An enormous influx of Syrian refugees, however, created unanswered questions of how the region's labor market would fare. The Jordanian Labor Market leverages the 2016 Jordan Labor Market Panel Survey to provide answers to some of these questions. It offers an unprecedented opportunity to assess the challenges that Jordan faces. It addresses key economic and policy questions through unparalleled nationally representative date. The Jordanian Labor Market presents critical new insights into the status of migrants and refugees in Jordan. It examines key indicators of the labor market including labor supply, job creation, wages and inequality, and self-employment. It also looks at transitions across the life course in Jordan such as education, school-to-work transition, marriage and fertility, housing and new households, and social insurance and retirement. These factors provide important insight into important challenges Jordan's economy and society faces.

This book fills an important gap in the knowledge about labor market conditions in Egypt in the aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings, and it analyzes the results of the latest round of the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey carried out in early 2012. The chapters cover topics that are essential to understanding the conditions leading to the Egyptian revolution of 25 January 2011, including the persistence of high youth unemployment, labor market segmentation and rigidity, growing informality, and the declining role of the state as an employer. It includes the first research on the impact of the revolution and the ensuing economic crisis on the labor market, including issues such as changes in earnings, increased insecurity of employment, declining female labor force participation, and the stagnation of micro and small enterprise growth. Comparisons are made to labor market conditions prior to the revolution using previous rounds of the survey fielded in 1988, 1998, and 2006. The chapters make use of this unique longitudinal data to provide a fresh analysis of the Egyptian labor market after the Arab Spring, an analysis that was simply not feasible with previously existing data. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the economics of the Middle East and the political economy of the Arab Spring.

This collection is the first to analyse the results of the Jordan Labour Market Panel Survey of 2010 (JLMPS 2010), a major household survey of labour market conditions carried out in Jordan by the Economic Research Forum. The chapters cover topics that are essential to understanding the conditions leading to the Arab Spring, including the persistence of high youth unemployment despite fairly healthy economic growth, the co-existence of in-migration, high unemployment, and out-migration, the very low and stagnant female participation rates despite rapid increases in educational attainment and delayed marriage among Jordanian women, and the unusually early retirement among prime-age male workers. The chapters make use of this unique data set to provide a fresh analysis of the Jordanian labour market that was simply not feasible with previously existing data. The book will prove to be essential reading for anyone interested in the Economics of the Middle East and the political economy of the Arab Spring.

The Egyptian economy has faced many challenges in the decade since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. Not only was job creation anaemic from 2012 to 2018, but new jobs were also of low-quality, characterized by informality and vulnerability to economic shocks. These challenges pushed many in Egypt, especially the most vulnerable, into a more precarious labor market situation. Then, in the midst of economic recovery brought on by tough reform measures adopted in 2016 and 2017, the country was hit by the widespread disruption of a global pandemic. This book examines the plight of Egypt's most vulnerable groups by focusing on the intersection of gender and economic vulnerability in the labor market. With this emphasis on vulnerability and a lens that is sensitive to gender differences and inequities, the contributors to this volume use data from the most recent wave of a unique longitudinal survey to illuminate different aspects of Egyptians' lives. The aspects they explore include labor supply behavior, the ability to access good quality and well-paying jobs, the evolution of wages and wage inequality, the school-to-work transition of youth, the decline in public sector employment, international and internal migration, the situation of rural women, access to social protection, food security, vulnerability to shocks and coping mechanisms, health status, and access to health care services. These analyses are prescient in understanding the axes of vulnerability in Egyptian society that became all too salient during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Tunisian Labor Market in an Era of Transition is a comprehensive examination of the central labor market issues facing this key Arab country. It includes contributions on the size, structure, and evolution of the labor force, the characteristics of labor demand, employment policies and regulations, and unemployment. Further chapters explore the wage formation process, gender differences in the labor market, the returns to education, child labor and schooling, and the trends and patterns of international migration from Tunisia. The Tunisian Labor Market in an Era of Transition is an essential reference on how youth employment, gender disparities, and informality contributed to political and social unrest in North African societies, and on the effect of migration flows from North Africa to Europe.