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Egypt Urban Society
Although the majority of Egyptians lived in villages as
recently as 1988, cities, which have been important in Egypt for
more than 2,000 years, continued to be important. Traditional
urban society was more heterogeneous than in most other areas of
the Middle East. Quarters, segregated along religious and
occupational lines, were effectively self-governing in their
internal affairs. As in villages, kinship relations provided a
basis for solidarity, and relationships among families frequently
overrode differences in wealth and social position. Prosperous
families assumed leadership roles and took responsibility for
their less fortunate kin and neighbors. The rapid urbanization
that began in the nineteenth century created large residential
and industrial suburbs and led to the emergence of a professional
middle class and a working class. Nevertheless, elite wealthy
families that had ruled Egypt for generations, and in some cases
for centuries, continued to dominate the cities until the early
1950s.
The postrevolutionary ruling elite was believed by many to
have come from rural backgrounds. In reality most of the elite
came from the urban middle class and were sons of mid- and low-
ranking bureaucrats. A few members of the new elite came from the
ranks of the old elite, although most influential members of the
new elite were military officers. Most of these officers held
positions in the government agencies that were in charge of
national security, but others also held important positions in
local government and the diplomatic service. Below the top
echelons of government, however, the military played a less
important role. This situation was reflected in the fact that
since 1952, only about 6 percent of individuals in lower-level
administrative posts had attended a military college. Educated
bureaucrats from the middle and upper-middle classes continued to
fill the bulk of civil service posts. Since 1952 three of every
four bureaucrats have come from cities, with one of every two
coming from Cairo. About a third had fathers who were civil
servants. Although the military's formal presence in the
bureaucracy was limited, officers clearly made the most important
decisions. The emergence of a military elite led to a new kind of
civil servant, the officer-technocrat. Politically ambitious
professionals had a significant incentive to join the officers
corps, and officers were motivated to acquire professional
training
(see Training and Education
, ch. 5).
Although the prerevolutionary elite lost its status as the
ruling class, it was not eliminated. The land redistribution
program of the 1950s and socialist policies of the 1960s
compelled many old elite families to sell agricultural and
industrial properties that had been important sources of their
wealth. Nevertheless, most of these families were able to
maintain their social and economic positions through their
domination of the prestigious professions. The old elite had
highly valued education before the revolution, and many families
had sent at least one son abroad for professional training. Thus,
the old elite had lost its political influence after the 1952
Revolution, but its investments in education enabled its
offspring to emerge as the doctors, engineers, and top-level
administrators of the new regime.
After 1974 the government encouraged the growth of private
enterprise through infitah policies, and a large number of
people from old elite families emerged as part of a new class of
wealthy contractors, financiers, and industrialists. Many of
these people, who had held senior-level civil service positions,
switched to private practice, industry, or commerce because their
government salaries had been relatively low. A person holding a
ministerial-level position in government could earn up to 1,000
percent more by taking a post in the private sector. Joint
ventures between Egyptian and foreign firms, partnerships for
Egyptians in foreign firms, and commissions for Egyptians dealing
with private companies all contributed to the formation of a new
entrepreneurial class. By 1990 prerevolutionary elite families
remained financially secure and socially prominent and had
regained some political influence.
The middle class, emulating the old elite, recognized the
link between higher education and prestigious civil service jobs.
The government, which had initiated the development of secular
education as part of the effort to staff the civil bureaucracy
with trained personnel, has provided a secure, well-paid position
to virtually every college-educated applicant since the 1920s.
Prior to the 1952 Revolution, postsecondary education was costly,
and middle-class families who were determined to send at least
one son to college usually endured considerable financial
hardship. Most middle-class youth could not afford to attend
college, but they could still gain entry into the less
prestigious, lower civil-service ranks by obtaining a high school
diploma. Before 1950 secondary schools were not free, but middle-
class families could generally afford the fees. As an increasing
number of middle-class high school graduates sought government
employment, the bureaucracy became overstaffed with poorly paid,
white-collar workers who had little prospect of advancement into
top administrative positions, most of which were held by
university graduates. Frustration among low-ranking civil
servants was an important factor leading to the 1952 Revolution.
After the 1952 Revolution, the Free Officers increased
career-advancement opportunities in government, improved pay
scales in the civil service, and expanded public education
opportunities at all levels. To meet middle-class demands for
equitable access to higher education, the government abolished
college and university fees and introduced competitive admission
based on special entrance examinations. The state continued to be
the principal employer of college graduates. A government decree
in 1964 required the civil service to offer jobs to all Egyptians
holding degrees from postsecondary colleges and institutes.
During the early and mid-1960s, when Egypt's economy was
socialized, the public sector employed thousands of new mid- and
upper-rank administrators, as well as tens of thousands of high
school graduates. The annual increase in the number of university
graduates soon greatly exceeded the number of positions available
in the civil service. By the mid-1970s, the civil service
employed more than 1.3 million people, and overstaffing became a
serious problem in all government ministries. After the
government introduced the infitah in 1974, it no longer
felt obliged to hire every college graduate. Individual
ministries determined the number of new positions that needed to
be filled each year; once the quota was met, the names of other
applicants were placed on waiting lists. During the 1980s, an
average of 250,000 college graduates were waiting at any given
time to be called for government jobs; the typical applicant
remained on the waiting list for more than three years. This
situation caused unrest among middle- and lower-middle-income
students who had hoped that higher education would be their
ticket to upward mobility.
Whereas the middle class was preoccupied with education and
civil service careers, most urban Egyptians, who belonged to the
lower class, were concerned about earning a livelihood in an
economy characterized by persistent and extensive unemployment
and underemployment
(see Employment
, ch. 3). In terms of
occupations and incomes, the lower class was very heterogeneous
and comprised three main groups: service providers, skilled
workers, and unskilled laborers. The first group included
artisans, bakers, barbers, butchers, carpenters, office and sales
clerks, cobblers, drivers, household and hotel domestic workers,
janitors, small shopkeepers, tailors, street vendors, waiters,
and numerous other providers of urban services. The majority of
service workers were involved in the large informal sector of the
economy; they were not covered by minimum wage laws and did not
participate in the social security program. A few service
workers, primarily talented artisans and enterprising
shopkeepers, earned sufficient money to support a family without
the assistance of a second income; the more successful among them
actually merged into the lower middle class. The majority of
service workers, however, were generally unable to provide
adequate food and shelter for a family on the income from one
job.
The second lower-class group consisted of skilled workers who
were usually employed in private or public factories. Many also
worked in the construction industry as electricians, masons,
mechanics, painters, and plumbers. Workers in this group tended
to prefer jobs in the public sector, which employed approximately
42 percent of the industrial labor force in the 1980s, because
government-owned manufacturing enterprises guaranteed job
security, paid salaries that were at or above the legal minimum
wage, and provided benefits such as routine promotions, raises,
paid holidays, and sick leave. Most skilled workers were
generally more financially secure than most service workers.
Nevertheless, the typical working male who headed a household
found it difficult to support a family on one income. To
supplement family incomes, most workers held two jobs, permitted
their wives or unmarried daughters to work, or received
remittances from family members working abroad. Many skilled
workers also migrated to other Arab countries where they received
higher salaries.
Unskilled laborers comprised the poorest stratum of urban
society. Most of them either lacked permanent jobs or were
employed in low-wage, menial jobs such as street sweeping, trash
collection, sewage-system maintenance, and grave digging. Males
with no skills frequently found temporary work on construction
sites, especially in Greater Cairo. Intermittent work was also
available on the docks of Alexandria and the cities along the
Suez Canal. During the 1980s, unskilled workers headed most of
the estimated 35 percent of urban households with incomes below
the poverty line. According to a study by AID, about half of
Egypt's urban population lived in absolute poverty, and most of
these lived in households headed by unskilled workers.
The infitah generally had an adverse impact on the
lower class. Despite the substantial rise in wages after the mid-
1970s, real incomes failed to keep pace with the rampant
inflation. Although extensive government subsidies on basic
necessities alleviated the worst effects of inflation, most
lower-class families spent up to 75 percent of their budgets on
food. When the government announced in January 1977 that it would
eliminate subsidies on selected "luxury" items, including beer,
French bread, refined flour, and granulated sugar, the poor
rioted in cities throughout the Delta and Nile Valley. In Cairo
the police were unable to control the violence, and the
government called in the army to restore order. The government
canceled its plan to abolish certain subsidies, and since 1977,
it has periodically expanded the whole subsidy program.
In addition to the food subsidies, some members of the lower-
class benefited from remittances sent to them from family members
who were working abroad. About nine of every ten Egyptians
working in other countries were from the lower class. At least 1
million poor families received remittances from fathers or sons
who were working in Libya or the Arab countries of the Persian
Gulf. The remittances raised household incomes by between 100
percent and 700 percent, resulting in significantly higher living
standards. The absence of so many workers had also created a
general shortage of trained personnel, a situation that permitted
skilled workers to bargain for increasingly higher wages. In the
early 1980s, for example, a free-lance tile-setter could earn
about as much in one week as a government minister could earn in
a month.
Although the living standards of poor families receiving
remittances improved after 1974, the lower class, like the middle
class, was generally skeptical of the infitah. Both
classes benefited from Nasser's policies, which expanded access
to education and employment opportunities, but they generally
believed that reduced government spending on social programs,
pared public sector employment, and increased incentives for
private enterprise would undermine gains achieved in the 1950s
and 1960s. The upper class, which accounted for less than 10
percent of the total population, supported the infitah
because they benefited from policies aimed at easing import-
export restrictions and from programs designed to attract foreign
investment.
Data as of December 1990
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