Women in much of the Arab World are very lightly concentrated in industry.<sup>8</sup> In oil exporting countries (OECs) of the Gulf, they are mostly concentrated in services<sup>9</sup> and in oil importing countries (OICs), such as in Morocco and Egypt, they are additionally concentrated in agriculture (UNDP 2021). Female participation in industry is generally below 15% throughout the region with the exception of Tunisia (33%) and Algeria (25%). With just 7% of total female participation in industry, Egypt occupies the bottom position compared to its OICs counterparts. In fact, quite comparable to the average for the group of OECs.

With such limited participation in industry and in turn manufacturing in Egypt, it is expected that the effect of COVID-19 on women employment be limited. Our firm-level representative sample data show that overall, there has been a decrease in manufacturing employment in response to COVID-19 for both men and women. The reported decline has been however quite small and accounts for less than 5% of original weighted employment prior to COVID (Table 1; column 3). This decline is equivalent to just 10353 jobs in our sample when we use weights.<sup>10</sup> In terms of percentage change this decline hit men harder (-5% compared to -3.6% for women; columns 6 and 9). Female participation within manufacturing is just 18.2% and has slightly increased to 18.4% post COVID, indicating that women are heavily underrepresented in manufacturing and that’s probably the reason why men are hit harder in this male dominated sector of the economy.

**-** **<u>Table 1: Employment pre and post COVID and labor market participation by gender</u>**

|Total|Total||Male|Male|% change|Female|Female|% change|F share in|F share in|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|empl.|empl.|%|empl.|empl.|in male|empl.|empl.|in female|total|total empl.|
|BC|AC|change|BC|AC|empl. AC|BC|AC|empl.AC|empl. BC|AC|
|212796|202443|-4.87%|162455|154300|-5.02%|38727|37326|-3.62%|18.20%|18.44%|

Source: Authors’ calculations using the EIFBS. Total/Male/Female empl. BC refers to Total/Male/Female sample manufacturing employment before COVID using sampling weights. Without weights Total empl. BC=594978 and AC=574692 (so nearly 20 thousand jobs are lost in absolute terms post-COVID). Similarly, AC refers to the respective values after COVID. Female share in total employment BC (AC) = column 7 (8)/column 1.

We would expect these facts to be mirrored in the ensuing ‘Gender Gap’. Figure 1 shows that the ‘Gender Gap’, calculated as the difference between male and female employment, has declined post COVID in terms of the median, the mean and in terms of the percentage change in employment by gender (Figure 1).

<!-- Start of picture text --> Figure 1: Gender Gap (M-F) and percentage change in employment pre- and post-COVID-19<br>a. Gender Gap median b. Gender Gap mean c. % change in M/F employment<br>AC<br>Absolute Gender Gap BC Absolute Gender Gap AC Gender Gap BC Gender Gap AC % change in M empl AC % change in F empl AC<br>10 50 0<br>8 40 -.02<br>6 30 -.04<br>4 20 -.06<br>2 10 -.08<br>0 0 -.1<br><!-- End of picture text --> Source: Authors’ own elaboration using the EIFBS. Weights are used. The gender gap equals the difference between the number of male and female employees after COVID (AC) and before COVID (BC). Panel c gives the

> 8 Which is also similar around the world but a lot more pronounced in the Arab region.

> 9 Ranging between 73% in Algeria to 97% in Kuwait of all employment women.

> 10 Around 20 thousand when weights are not used.

6