SOCIAL MOBILITY
insecure children of the rural and urban middle
2 Kinds of Societies:
 Closed stratification system – people must remain
in the social class into which they were born and no
amount of talent or effort can have any effect.
 Open stratification system – parents are unable to
pass any advantage on to their children. All children
have an equal chance to prosper or fail, based only
on their ability and hard work.
Before Nasser and the revolution of 1952 – inherited land
and wealth
After 1952 – from closed system to a more open one
The Revolution and Social Mobility
Nasser created vastly more opportunities for Egyptians in
two ways:
1. He expelled the existing upper class by ending
colonialism and nationalizing almost all Egyptian
businesses.
2. He moved quickly to create a modern economy
under state ownership.
Shrinking Opportunities Today
 Every year 400k to 500k people enter the labor
force for the first time and half of them cannot find
jobs
 It is 2 decades now since the government found it
could no longer promise a job every university
graduate.
 However, Egyptians still look to education as the
route out of poverty, even quite modest jobs as
clerks or semiskilled workers require high school
degree.
 Young people without jobs cannot marry, and until
they marry they cannot leave their parents’ homes.
Migration
 The most common response to shrinking
opportunities.
 About 2 ½ million Egyptian men – one in every
seven people of working age – work outside Egypt
today, mostly in the Persian Gulf states: Iraq, Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, and Libya.
 Men don’t take their families abroad with them
and women never become migrant workers.
 Migrant work pays well. Those working abroad
send home an average of $1600 apiece yearly (way
above average earnings of &700)
 Men of every class work abroad, but especially the
classes – the sons of small landowners,
shopkeepers, and government bureaucrats. They
often work as engineers, teachers, and doctors.
Racial Inequality in Egypt
 Egypt is a racially mixed society. Its people come
from Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, and Europe,
but they have been mixing and intermarrying for
thousands of years. As a result, Egyptians vary in
their skin colors and facial features. Light skin is a
source of prestige.
 Before the 1952 revolution, many families in the
landowning elite were aristocrats descended from
Egypt’s earlier rulers (Greeks, Turks, and
Macedonians). They were conscious of their lighter
skin and sought similar spouses for their children.
 Today light skin is still associated with elite status,
with wealth and power.
 Skin color is only one of many sources of prestige
in Egypt, including gender, education, occupation,
family background, and city origins.
 While Egyptians are aware of skin color, they are
not race-conscious. They do not classify people by
race: “she is black” or “he is white”.
 Race is not a master status in Egypt. Skin tone does
not determine a person’s access to jobs, education,
or choice of spouse in any major way.
Religious Inequality
 More than 90% of all Egyptians are Muslims.
 Coptic Christians are a religious minority group in
Egypt. They are a minority not just in numbers
(there are nearly 10 million Coptic Christians) but
in terms of their lack of power.
 Arabic-speaking Muslims are the social majority in
Egypt, and were so even their numbers were small,
because they controlled the military, the
government, and the laws
 The Muslim majority permitted Copts to maintain
their own communities and religious institutions,
as long as they accepted their subordination to
Muslim authority.
 At other times, Coptic institutions and property
were attacked by the Muslim majority, despite
their official protection under Islamic law.
The Life of a Religious Minority
 Egypt’s Coptic community has traditionally been
divided between those living in Cairo and
 Alexandria and those living in rural areas in Upper
Egypt.
 Before 20th century, urban Copts often served as
clerks and administrators for Egypt’s Muslim rulers.
 Butros Butros Ghali, secretary general of the UN, is
descended from a prominent Coptic family with a
long tradition of government service
 Urban Copts have little informal social contact with
their Muslim neighbors, except to some extent
when they attend university.
 Poor Coptic Christians and Muslims are often
neighbors and they come into close social contact
as part of the same neighborhood social networks.
Coptic and Muslim women shop for one another,
watch each other’s children, and lend each other
money. Christian and Muslim neighbors attend
each other’s weddings and funerals and participate
in the more social aspects of each other’s religious
celebrations. Example, it would not be unusual for
Christian men to attend their town’s annual festival
at the Muslim shrine, nor would it be strange for a
Muslim woman to go the Easter services with her
Christian neighbor.
 Copts can be considered a highly assimilated
minority, one which has taken on the culture of the
dominant group.
 Copts cannot be easily distinguished from their
Muslim neighbors. Centuries ago, Copts adopted
Arabic as their daily language; the ancient Coptic
language is rarely used. Copts wear the same
clothing as other Egyptians and eat the same foods
too. In daily life, only a visible cross or a Christian
name (such as Butros) distinguishes Copt from
Muslim.
Increasing Discrimination
 Copts are experiencing more prejudice and
discrimination.
 Militant Islamic groups have pressured the
government to define Egypt as an Islamic state,
ruled by Islamic laws. These groups frighten Copts
and make them feel like outsiders in their own
country.
 Terrorist fundamentalists have attacked and killed
Copts and vandalized and burned churches. As
many as 150 to 200 Copts have been killed and the
government has been forced to station police
guards outside churches. Coptic children are now
shunned by their public school classmates, and
women with the traditional tattooed cross are
taunted and attacked in public.
 Copts say that despite its official opposition to
terrorism, the government encourages attacks on
them. Construction of new churches has not been
allowed for thirty years and Copts have been
barred from positions in the government, the army,
the police force, and universities. In their efforts to
appear pro-Islam, government officials sometimes
make statements that reflect deep hostility toward
the Coptic minority.
SOCIAL CHANGE AND THE FUTURE
Economic Stagnation and Social Problems
 Some responsibility for economic stagnation also
lies with the peculiar nature of Egyptian socialism
as it developed under Nasser.
 For the government bureaucracies that ran the
economy, efficiency and productivity were not
important goals.
 In order to provide work for all educated Egyptians,
Nasser began overstaffing the bureaucracy even in
his day, and this pattern has continued.
 Bureaucrats start work at nine and leave at two and
spend much of the time in between drinking tea
and chatting. They are poorly paid, so many treat
their jobs as economic resources, opportunities to
collect bribes or help relatives advance their
fortunes.
Egyptians find this joke very funny; it rings true to them:
“US President Clinton visits Cairo and insists on jogging
thru the streets. He meets a poor man who pours out
his heart and tells him about his sick wife and his son
who can’t afford to marry. Clinton is very moved and
when he gets back to Washington he calls President
Mubarak and tells him, ‘I’ve sent you $5000. Please give
it to Ibrahim Sayed of Bulak for me.’ Mubarak calls in an
aide. ‘here’s $2500 from Bill Clinton. Find Ibrahim Sayed
in Bulak and give it to him.’ The aide calls his assistant.
‘go to Bulak and find Ibrahim Sayed and give him $1000
from Pres. Clinton.’ The assistant calls his assistant. ‘this
$500 is from Bill Clinton. Find Ibrahim Sayed and give it
to him.’ The assistant calls his secretary. ‘I want you to
find Ibrahim Sayed and tell him Bill Clinton sends his
regards.”
Economic Development and Government Policy
 Anwar Sadat, Nasser’s successor, made peace
with Israel and reduced military expenditure.
He also distanced Egypt from the Soviet Union,
reduced state control of the economy, and
 invited private enterprise, Egyptian and
foreign, to invest in Egypt.
But Sadat’s encouragement of private
investment soon backfired. Investors built
high-rise hotel and luxury apartments, but
provided few jobs for ordinary people. Many
traditional neighborhoods in Cairo were
destroyed and replaced with expensive
housing developments. At the same time,
world bank persuaded Sadat to reduce Egypt’s
growing debt by cutting government spending.
The government unwisely chose to cut the
subsidies it provided for wheat, rice, and other
basic foods.
 Hosni Mubarak, an air force general who has
ruled Egypt since Anwar Sadat’s death in 1981,
has generated enormous hostility by its
inability to deal with Egypt’s faltering economy
and its ever-widening class divisions.
Population Problems
 In 1947, there were 19 million Egyptians, by
1976 there were nearly 37 million, and by 1993
there were 58 million. By some estimates,
Egypt will have nearly 105 million people by
2025.
The Demographic Transition
 In a demographic transition, a society’s
population rapidly expands as a result of falling
death rates. In 1950, 24 people out of every
thousand Egyptians died every year; by 1990,
only 8 out of every thousands Egyptians died
yearly.
 A sharp decline in the number of people dying
yearly leads to a rapid increase in the size of a
population. The striking drop in Egypt’s death
rate coincides with efforts by the government
to provide free or low-cost health care to all
Egyptians. Between 1952 and 1976,
government expenditures on public health
increased 500%
Urbanization and Population Growth
 What changes made birth rates fall? One critical
change has been the migration of people from the
countryside to the cities and their involvement in
an urban economy.
 In 1950, only 1 Egyptian in 3 lived in an urban area,
but by 1990, half of all Egyptians lived in cities.
 In 1992, rural women had an average of 5 children
each, but urban women had only 3.
 In the cities, women in the paid labor force are
likely to have fewer children. Also, city families see
that educated children earn more than those who
are barely literate. If a family thinks it likely that
they will be able to send their children to school,
then it pays to have fewer children so they will be
able to afford to educate them
 Conversely, a very poor family that knows
education is out of the question, will find it more
rational to have many children, all of whom can
work and bring in some income to help the family.
 Traditional Islamic values and norms in the
countryside encourage large families. The more
children a woman has, especially sons, the more
prestige and influence she gains.
Population Policy
 Since 1966 Egypt’s government has encouraged
family planning and the use of contraceptives to
limit population increase. The government has
created a national network of family planning
clinics, conducted an extensive media campaign in
favor of small families, and made contraceptives
widely available. These efforts have not been as
successful as the government hoped: Egyptians
tend to distrust anything that their government
promotes.
 Nevertheless, it is clear that programs to reduce
family sized have met with some success. In 1992,
almost half of all married Egyptian women
reported that they used a modern contraceptive
method such as the diaphragm or the intrauterine
device. The same survey also reported that 67% of
married women wanted no more children.
The Food Gap and Inequality
 Today, Egypt suffers from a food gap: population is
growing faster than food production
Environmental Damage: The Unintended Consequences of
Economic Growth
 In the 1950s, Gamal Abdul Nasser attempted to
increase Egypt’s productivity in 2 ways: by farming
more land and by developing heavy industry. His
approach was heavily influenced by American and
European ideas about irrigation and
 industrialization. These policies had serious winner, because they charged his novels slandered
unintended consequences when applied to Egypt. Islam.
 The Aswan Dam was the most important element
in Nasser’s plan to increase agricultural production.
In the short run, the dam was a great success: it
controlled the destructiveness of the Nile’s annual
flood, it permitted more effective allocation of
irrigation water, and new land was brought under
cultivation. A lake, Lake Nasser, formed behind the
Aswan Dam. As time went on, however, the Aswan
Dam produced more and more negative effects.

Industrial Pollution

 In the 1950s and the 1960s, Nasser worked to

introduce heavy industry to Egypt.
 One of the centerpieces of this effort was the
mammoth steelworks of the Helwan industrial
complex. This project transformed the countryside
and the lives of the people.
 Villages that existed on the fringes of the modern
world gained electricity, paved roads, schools,
radio and television, modern consumer products
and wages that permitted people to buy them.
 Several decades later, the same villages are paying
environmental toll for industrial development:
water and air are polluted, the land has lost some
of its fertility, and agricultural produce is
contaminated by industrial wastes.
 Industrial pollution from petrochemical plants has
begun to wear away Egypt’s most famous tourist
attraction, the pyramids. The survival of these
ancient monuments is also threatened by an eight-
lane highway and its fumes and pollution. Not only
pyramids, but people are endangered by Egypt’s
burgeoning auto traffic. Cairo’s air is dangerously
polluted with lead.

The Islamic Alternative

 In 1981, Anwar Sadat was gunned down at a

military parade by members of an elite military unit
who belonged to Al Jihad, a militant Islamic
movement.
 Movements such as Al Jihad are best understood as
revolutionary terrorist organizations, groups that
use violence against individuals in order to change
their societies.
 Islamic terrorist groups have attacked writers,
teachers, members of the Christian minority, and
European tourists as well as police and political
figures. Terrorists attacked one of Egypt’s most
respected writers, Naguib Mafouz, a Nobel Prize