Ameena Tawakol

Ronald I. McKinnon Memorial Fellowship for Undergraduates | 2016 - 2017 Academic Year

Women and Work in Egypt: The Effect of the Election of the Muslim Brotherhood on Female Labor Force Participation

Female labor force participation and employment have been decreasing in the past decade in Egypt. Research has attempted to identify the driving forces behind this trend, which was exacerbated by the revolution in 2011. With the 2011 revolution came Egypt’s first change of power in almost 30 years, from President Hosni Mubarak to Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi. She will study the changes in women’s labor force participation from 2006 to 2012 by governorate, depending on whether the governorate was initially supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 2005 parliamentary elections. She defines Muslim Brotherhood support by examining voting patterns, and she defines labor force participation using the ELMPS, Egypt’s labor market panel survey. Ultimately, she hopes to uncover whether the trend of decreasing labor force participation for women was stronger or weaker in Muslim Brotherhood-supportive areas, and why this is the case.

Ameena Tawakol, Department of Economics

Ameena Tawakol, '17, is majoring in economics and minoring in French. She is writing her thesis on the change in women's labor market participation in Egypt in governorates that showed electoral support for the Muslim Brotherhood. Within economics, Ameena focuses on development economics and has interned at the World Bank and at Bruegel think tank.