Tremendous opportunity for economic growth in MENA |
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Improve quality of basic education and expand options for secondary education to provide better opportunities for young people
Improve quality of primary education. In a fiscally constrained environment, expand lower secondary school capacity by a combination of sharing costs and working with the private sector. Increase the incentives for firms to train employees.
Pay attention to labor market challenges High unemployment reflects growth rates lower than the developing country average and schooling systems that do not impart market-relevant skills and learning. In addition, labor markets protect the rights of incumbents, making it hard for new entrants—particularly youth. - Social norms can affect whether young women succeed in the labor market.
- In Egypt, women—whose average education has increased enormously—stay close to home and refrain from driving, limiting their job mobility. While young males increased their commuting distance between 1988 and 1998, young women did not, limiting their access to paid employment outside government.
| | Labor market challenges In some countries, where public sector wages and benefits are more generous than private sector compensation, there is a strong incentive for educated youth to queue for government jobs and stay unemployed for some time after graduation. - In Morocco, the starting hourly wage in the public sector is 42.5 percent higher than that in the private sector (Bourdabat, 2005).
- In Tunisia, the public sector wage premium is 18 percent.
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