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  • Title: [Migrations and economic and social change in Egypt].
    Author: Ged A.
    Journal: Tiers Monde (1960); 1985; 26(103):493-506. PubMed ID: 12280371.
    Abstract:
    The inexistence in the Arab world of institutions to facilitate development led Egypt to adopt the infitah, a policy of economic opening which is not a voluntarist economic strategy but rather is intended to create a climate favorable to a more capitalistic orientation for individuals with access to petroleum income. Egypt's gross national product grew by 4.6%/year in the dozen years through 1965, but thereafter growth was sluggish or even negative. After 1967 the choices of the dominant economic classes were oriented toward liberalism, and the arrival of Sadat allowed this orientation to prevail even before the infitah. The various measures of the infitah were designed to promote investment, reactivate the private sector, and reorganize the public sector. Most of the specific projects approved through 1978 were in the tertiary sector, they did little to stimulate further development, and the total number of jobs created was relatively insignificant. The transformation of the Egyptian economy is due not so much to the infitah as to 4 other elements: oil, income from the Suez canal, tourism, and emigration. At present petroleum represents 30% of Egypt's exports, the Suez canal will probably bring in $1.5 billion annually in coming years, and tourism brought in $1 billion in 1984, but in terms of economic and social impact on the total population emigration is much more important. The number of emigrants increased from 100,000 in 1973 to over 3 million in 1984 and the extent of their remittances increased from $184 million in 1973 to nearly $4 billion at present. Serious shortages of skilled and unskilled labor have been created by the departure of 10-15% of the overall labor force and a higher proportion for some skilled professions. The number of workers in construction more than doubled from 1971-79, while 10% of the agricultural labor force departed. Agricultural wages increased by an average of 7.1% in these years as agricultural workers were attracted to the higher wages of construction. However, the actual levels of agricultural wages were very low at outset. Differences between Egyptian wages and those paid in the Gulf states became so significant that they disrupted the prevailing norms and hierarchies of remuneration. The development of migration thus represents an individual response to 2 types of problems: the incapacity of the Egyptian state to develop an economy that creates employment, and the development of methods to allow each Arab state to benefit from petroleum income. But the future course of migration to the Gulf states is not known, and whether the improvements already observed in the lives of rural Egyptians can be sustained over the long term is a vital question.
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