the gap outlined above. Following the COVID-19-induced recession, women’s employment and labour market outcomes have been disproportionately reduced (Titan et al. 2020; AdamsPrassl et al. 2020; Farre et al. 2020; Forsythe 2020; Blundell et al. 2020; Andrew et al. 2020; Benzeval et al. 2020; Collins et al. 2021; Hupkau and Petrongolo 2020; Hipp and Buenning 2021; Alon et al. 2021; Dang and Nguyen 2021). While the impacts of the pandemic on the labour force of developed economies have been widely studied, research on the gender gap in developing countries has been less explored. For the MENA region, the nascent literature provides insights into the employment gap in services and in the care work sectors, where women are disproportionately overrepresented compared to manufacturing (Assaad et al. 2022; Barsoum and Majbouri 2021; Krafft et al. 2022, Marouani et al. 2022; Kraft et al. 2022). It also highlights the lockdown’s effect on the increased burden in female unpaid housework activities (ESCWA 2020; Alon et al. 2022; UN Women Jordan 2020; Kraft et al. 2022). Nevertheless, there has been no equivalent work on the evolution of female employment in manufacturing post-COVID. This paper fills this gap.

We proceed in two ways. First, we look at the evolution of the gender employment gap post COVID-19. Then, we examine the heterogeneous effects of firm characteristics and other controls on the ensuing gap. In doing so, we use a unique firm-level dataset, namely the Egyptian Industrial Firm Behavior Survey 2020/21 (EIFBS). The dataset gives detailed information on employment levels pre and post the COVID-19 breakout, and their gender distribution. Two sets of factors may affect the gender gap. We distinguish between ‘status variables’ or ‘innate characteristics’, and those which are shaped by the behavior of the industrial firm such as managerial practices, investment in innovation or worker training and the adoption of advanced technology. ‘Innate characteristics’ cover traits such as being informal, catering to the domestic or export market, firm size or being in the private sector or located in an industrial zone.

We find that, contrary to evidence from other countries around the world, the COVID19 shock led ‘overall’ to a slight improvement in the gender employment gap in manufacturing. This gap however stems from a larger ‘reduction’ in male employment compared to that for females. Men have borne the brunt of the pandemic in Egyptian manufacturing. The relative weaker direct employment impact on women compared to men is primarily due to the very limited number of women in employment in manufacturing to start with. Female employment in manufacturing is just 18% of total employment in the sector (EIFBS data). More generally, with just 7% of total female participation in industry (UNDP 2021), Egypt occupies the bottom position compared to its oil importing counterparts such as Tunisia, Jordan or even agriculture dominated Morocco. Industry encompasses more than just manufacturing, it additionally includes sectors such as construction, mining and quarrying; electricity, gas and water supply, which are inherently even more male-dominated compared to manufacturing.

While the aggregate results show that there had been a slight overall improvement in the employment gap post-COVID, there are nuances based on individual characteristics of the surveyed firms. The heterogeneity analysis shows that exporting firms and firms in industrial zones have on average ‘increased’ both types of employment post-COVID. Egypt’s traditional sectors have been particularly hit by the pandemic (El-Haddad and Zaki 2022, El-Haddad and Zaki 2023a, El-Haddad and Zaki 2023b) which is reflected in their shock exposure. These feminized sectors have contributed to a deterioration of the gender gap.

Whilst providing ‘helping hand employment’ for men, the informal sector has contributed to a worsening of the gender gap during the pandemic. Further, two more types of firms have contributed to a worsening of the gender gap in manufacturing, namely firms that 2