Three Essays on Education in Egypt

Abstract

Private tutoring is prevalent in Egypt and other developing countries. Nonetheless, the literature on tutoring is still small. The purpose of the first paper in this thesis is to gain an understanding of the determinants of tutoring in Egypt using micro-level data and to investigate whether gender bias exists in tutoring decisions. It is expected that since labor market outcomes are less favorable to girls and gender disparities are present in educational investments in general, parents would be less willing to invest in tutoring for girls. Surprisingly, however, no gender bias is detected with respect to tutoring. The absence of bias is a puzzling finding. Tutoring is used to enhance children's education performance and give them a competitive edge. Socioeconomic level was found to be an important predictor of tutoring investment in the first paper. This poses equity concerns. Therefore, it is important to examine whether tutoring pays off in terms of better educational outcomes. The literature on tutoring effects mostly does not take into account the potential endogeneity of tutoring. I estimate the effect of taking tutoring on the likelihood of joining the secondary level stream that leads to university in the second paper of the thesis. I use a proxy for the supply of tutors as an instrument for taking tutoring. Without instrumenting, tutoring has a statistically significant positive effect. After introducing the instrumental variable, this effect disappears. However, the estimate of the tutoring coefficient is imprecise and there is some evidence that the instrument variable does not have sufficient power to get a reliable estimate of the tutoring effect. The expectation of better marriage prospects for an educated woman may influence parental educational investment decisions and this can be the answer to the puzzle of apparently equal tutoring investment by gender as found in the first paper of the thesis. The third paper examines how female education improves marriage characteristics in Egypt. Findings show that highly educated women are more likely to marry a highly educated husband. They are also more likely to man-y a husband with a high pre-marital wealth level and to live independently upon marriage. Higher levels of female education are negatively associated with marrying a relative. Female education plays an insignificant role with respect to the share of marriage costs borne by a bride and her family.