Gender, Sibship Composition and Education in Egypt

Rania Tfaily, Carleton University

This paper examines the relationship between gender, sibship and education over time in Egypt using demographic and health survey data from 2000, 2005 and 2008. While there are numerous studies on sibship and education, the literature has a number of limitations. Most studies model sibship size and schooling as ‘single status’ variables and ignore how the impact of the number and gender configuration of siblings on girls’ education differs from that of boys’. This paper disaggregates schooling into conditional grade progression ratios and uses congruent sibship measures. It focuses on Egypt which experienced significant social and economic changes in the last few decades. The analyses show that family composition shapes differently the educational opportunities of boys and girls. The significant effects of sibship size and gender configuration of siblings extend into higher school grades, and their impact is generally stronger for more recent cohorts.