Employment in the Formal Sector

White-Collar Workers

Seven women in my core sample were white-collar workers. Though they identified themselves as working women, all said that their domestic responsibilities had priority over their jobs. This included two informants who had broken their engagements because their prospective husbands did not approve of their employment. On many occasions, all seven women said that they considered themselves lucky to have a job with the government, which has made some allowances for women's special circumstances.

They all claimed that access to a vertical social network was fundamental to obtaining a public sector job. To encourage higher education in the Nasser era, the government guaranteed a job to every high school graduate. However, by the mid-1970s graduates sometimes had to wait as long as three to five years before jobs became available. (This law is still on the books, but aware that there are few opportunities in the public sector, few people take it seriously.) All male and female government employees, particularly the younger ones, had some family or neighborly connection who had influenced their employment. Many of them had a father or an uncle whose boss had intervened on their behalf (see also Ibrahim 1981; Singerman 1995). Although all the women talked of influential connections, these were almost always relatives and friends who were at the bottom of the office hierarchy. White-collar employees thought it had become more difficult to obtain a clerical job in recent years, particularly if the candidate had neither a special skill nor a very important connection.

Another important factor pointed out by many of my informants—particularly younger women still in high school but aspiring to become white-collar workers—was the change in male attitudes toward women's employment. While I found no evidence that men who married during the 1970s resisted having their wives employed in the government/public sector, in the 1990s many young suitors did object. As Umm Halah put it,

Men were not stupid. A white-collar worker in the past brought home as much as a well-paid man. Even if she did not spend her money on basics, she would buy durable goods and so on. Any man married to a government employee, then, considered himself lucky. But now things have changed, our salaries are so low that it hardly covers the inconveniences a woman's absence causes to the family, so men say they don't want their wives to "work."

Steady changes in socioeconomic conditions since the 1970s have effectively eroded the financial advantage of white-collar workers, whose real wages and purchasing power have declined considerably as result of high inflation. Those middle-class individuals whose education and social contacts have made it possible have moved to private sector activities such as banking and insurance where salaries are much higher. Men from low-income groups (as I have already discussed in chapter 3) are forced to take a second or even a third job to make ends meet. In general, women neither can nor want to look for a second afternoon job or other jobs, for two reasons: first, they rarely have the opportunity to find work that pays better or that is more interesting than their regular jobs; second, women themselves attach a high value to their role as mother and wife, which despite being devalued in the processes of modernization, still carries considerable prestige and status in Egyptian society. Arlene MacLeod (1991) points out that women enjoy and value much greater autonomy in the home than in most office jobs.

These circumstances have made households more dependent on the husband's cash income and have reinforced the husband's role as provider, dashing the hopes of a younger generation of women who studied, often at great cost to their parents, to gain financial independence by becoming white-collar workers. Facing this, women have a vested interest in trying to uphold the traditions and legal situation that hold men responsible to provide for the family. Ironically, this has put the husbands of these wives in a stronger position to oppose their wives' employment.

Men present the demand that their wives stay home in terms of both

family reputation and the cost to the family and children of wives going to work. All women agree that when one considers the cost of clothing and other miscellaneous items, the remaining income does not compensate for the inconvenience to the family. Many of them pointed out that child care is a major obstacle to employment. Rising prices and housing shortages have forced the younger generation to establish their households farther away from their relatives. This has robbed women of the valuable child care support they could get from their kin or, at best, made it difficult to take advantage of this support.

Sadia's case exemplifies the problem. She worked for the Ministry of Education. She had three daughters aged two, six, and eight when I first met her during the first year of my research. At that time, the elder daughter was in the morning shift of her school.^[13] Every school day, Sadia prepared and packed all the necessary toys and books for all three children, then all of them walked to the school, which was some distance away. There, she would drop off the older daughter, take a twenty-minute bus ride to her mother's house, and drop the other two children there. Then she took two more buses to her office. The eldest daughter finished school at noon, so Sadia had to arrange for a neighbor to baby-sit the girl in the afternoon until she returned. She compensated these friends with gifts or by teaching their children in the evenings. At half past three, she would return to her mother's house, pick up the smaller children, and be home by five to cook, clean, shop, and supervise the daughter's homework.

Her family life became much more complicated the following year when her daughter's class switched to the afternoon shift. This situation caused a great deal of friction between Sadia and her husband. She told me,

This is not a life, this is misery. If only I could trust my husband, I would stop working at least for a few years because I have to spend all I earn on child care and buses. But I do not trust him. One cannot trust men these days, life is getting harder and they want to get out of their family responsibility. I feel I have to work so I will have enough to survive in my old days should my marriage fail.

Whereas women readily articulated the financial contribution to the household as their primary motive for entering the labor market, clearly

[13] Due to a shortage of space, most elementary and intermediate government schools in Cairo operated in two or three shifts, starting at 7 A.M. lasting approximately three hours each.

other motivations such as financial security—particularly in the case of divorce, widowhood, or old age—were at least as important and were constantly on their minds. Although many married women accepted that their employment no longer made economic sense, it was these other factors that made them insist they wanted to continue to work. To do so with minimum conflict with their husband, they adopted different strategies.

The most common was to return to the veil. Reveiling appeared among university students in the early 1970s (el-Guindi 1981). By the late 1970s, it had become a widespread movement among the lower middle classes, of which the most visible group were low-grade white-collar workers in the public and government sectors. By 1985, the majority of younger women in most government offices were veiled (Hoodfar 1991; MacLeod 1991).

The modern veil is a style of dress very different in appearance from the clothing worn by more traditional baladi and fallahi women. The most popular version of the modern veil is an outfit consisting of a long, Western-style dress or skirt worn with a kind of turban or scarf. The headgear covers the hair and sometimes the shoulders too (Rugh 1986). This outfit serves to separate the modern educated woman from the traditional woman, whose style of dress among "modern" urban Cairenes carries the implication of backwardness and lack of sophistication. This startling picture has evoked a great deal of attention and speculation, but very little systematic research has been conducted to examine the phenomenon from the perspective of the women who have chosen to veil, not merely out of custom, but as a strategy that enables them to continue to have access to some independent cash income. At the same time, they are undermining religious conservatives, for whom veiling means women's exclusion from the labor market. Here, by examining Sommayya's case, I hope to shed light on some of the factors contributing to young women's decisions to take up the veil.

Sommayya was the only daughter of a female-headed household. She was in her last year of teacher training when she became engaged, and she planned to marry a year after graduation. When she was about to begin her teaching career, her fiancé began to raise objections. His mother and eldest sister came to intervene on his behalf while I was present. A summary of this five-hour visit and discussion will help demonstrate how these questions are examined by the people involved.

Sommayya's fiancé's family calculated that she and her future household would lose more money than she would bring in if she went out

to teach. She would have to pay for bus fare and on occasion would eat lunch at work and buy cold drinks for her colleagues. She would also have to spend quite a lot on clothes because it is not acceptable for a teacher to go to work poorly dressed. This would account for virtually all the 40 pounds per month that she would bring home. Furthermore, people would talk and her reputation might be questioned, because who would know where she really spent her time? In overcrowded buses men who have lost their traditional respect for women might molest her, and of course this would hurt her pride and dignity as well as that of her husband and brothers. Such were the arguments of her future mother-in-law.

When her fiancé's family left, Sommayya said that she accepted their logic, yet she did not want to give up her career. She explained.

If I wanted to sit at home I could have been married four years ago and by now have a complete home and family. I studied hard and my mother suffered to provide the money for my education so that I could work. I cannot imagine staying at home all day. I have gone to school every day since I was seven years old. I never thought I would live the way my mother does. I can be a good wife and mother and yet have a job where I can have contact with other women like myself. Perhaps one day, if I have everything I need and have children, and my housework demands that I stay at home, I would give up my job. But not now. What if my marriage does not work out? Who knows? My husband might die when I still have young children, like my father did. My mother suffered so much bringing me and my two brothers up after my father died. She did everything she could so that I would not suffer her fate.

I left her then and came back to visit a couple of weeks later. She was happier and had solved the problem in a way that satisfied both her and her fiancé. She had gone to the Ministry of Education and demanded her right as a soon-to-be married woman to work near her future home. Her new workplace was a short bus ride away, a distance she could also walk. After discussing the situation with many of her friends and colleagues, she had decided to take up the veil. She had previously declared on many occasions that she would never veil because she did not see it as essential to being a good Muslim. While showing me her new clothes, she explained,

I wear a long skirt and this scarf. First, it is not that bad; it suits me better than many other women because my face is small. Second, if I have only two sets of clothes I can look smart at all times because nobody expects muhaggabat [the veiled ones] to wear new clothes every day. This will save

me a lot of money. It will also prevent people from talking about me or questioning my honor or my husband's. In this way, I have solved all the problems, and my husband's family is very happy that he is marrying a muhaggaba.

She continued to explain that none of the women in her fiancé's family were educated or worked in an office. They had felt a little uncomfortable before because they thought that educated, working women generally do not attend to their homes well and do not respect their husbands. Now that they are assured she is a good Muslim and will respect her husband, they are at ease with her. And her fiancé was comfortable with the resolution of the problem. Of her own accord, she had told him that when they had children she would give up her job and stay at home if they did not need her income. Apparently he had taken her willingness to compromise as an indication of her thoughtfulness and sincerity. He did not continue to insist that she should not work.

She arranged to work two shifts until they were married so as to buy the items they would need for their future home. She repeated many times to me, "A bride with no wealth wins no respect." After marriage, she would work only one shift, and so that she could continue to work as long as she wished, her mother promised to help with the child care and with shopping and obtaining subsidized food. To facilitate this, Sommayya had negotiated and obtained a condition in the marriage contract that she would not live far from her mother.

Clearly, veiling saves a lot in clothing expenditures because muhaggabat are no longer compared with women in Western attire, who as a rule are expected to have a colorful wardrobe.^[14] But the function of veiling is not only an economic one. The veil is a powerful symbol that communicates loudly and clearly to society at large and to husbands in particular that the wearer is bound by the Islamic idea of her gender role.^[15] A veiled woman indicates that, despite her unconventional economic activity, she respects traditional values and behavior. By wearing the veil, women lessen their husbands' insecurity; they convey to their husbands that, as wives, they are not in competition but rather in harmony with them. Further, wearing the veil puts women in a position to expect and demand that their husbands honor them and recognize

[14] This economic advantage is being eroded considerably now as more and more elite and upper-class women are taking up the veil and fancy Islamic fashion boutiques are emerging.

[15] For more discussion on the issue of reveiling, see Hoodfar 1991 and MacLeod 1991.

their Islamic rights. Husbands should not claim wives' wages, and they should fulfill their duty to provide for the family to the best of their ability.

It is not only young women in the early stages of employment who are forced by conditions in contemporary Cairo to resort to conventional veiling to defend their unconventional activities. Sadia was thirty-seven with three children and had worked for thirteen years when I met her in 1983. A few months after we met she decided to take up the veil. When I asked her why, she replied that she had never imagined that she would. She went on to explain that although she had always disagreed with veiling living conditions had changed. With much nostalgia for the past, she continued,

The last time I had an argument with my husband because he is never around to at least help me with shopping or to stay with the children when I shop, he demanded that I give up my job and stay at home if I could not handle both home and the job. In any case, he thought I spent most of my money on clothes for myself and presents for my parents and sister because they look after the children. I disagreed and fought with him, but the fact is that he is right. My wages have been spent mostly on these things for the past few years, but I'm not well dressed like I used to be, and I have no comfort. All the same, I don't want to give up the security of my job even at the cost of divorce. Who would look after me if tomorrow something happened to him or if he divorced me? My brothers don't even come to see me, much less look after me and my three children. I need the security. These days life is difficult. Women need security. So I decided to follow suit and take up the veil. I'm much more comfortable now. I wear a long dress and a turban. People are more respectful, particularly in the buses and shopping queues.

It has been argued that the veil is inconvenient to wear (MacLeod 1991). It may be, but a look at the cultural context and the reality of women's daily lives explains why many women consider it more convenient. It saves time because veiled women are not expected to be meticulously or formally dressed or to follow fashion trends, particularly regarding hairstyle. Also, in the Middle East and the Islamic world, women's clothing has always been associated with the rules and conventions of sexual behavior. Western styles of clothing often implicitly associate women with the "immoral" behavior and images of Western women—images based on American soap operas and not on the reality of Western life. The veil indicates that the wearer supports conventional sexual behavior and is not attempting to be sexually attractive to men.

The relief that the veil brings to these women has made their physical movements in the crowded streets of Cairo and in overcrowded public transport considerably easier.^[16]

Blue-Collar Workers

There were only three blue-collar workers in my sample.^[17] That is because the cost of this category of employment outweighs its benefits. These jobs may involve up to nine or ten hours away from home for a small income of about 30 pounds (albeit with fringe benefits), which has to cover transportation and other costs of going to work. The remainder does not fully compensate for the inconvenience and the material losses that a household may suffer as the result of the wife's absence.^[18] Furthermore, factory work conditions often continue to be very bad (see Hammam 1979).

The losses that can be incurred as the result of a woman's absence from her home include hiring baby-sitters, not having the time to use public services such as hospitals or to line up for subsidized goods, and having to repay the neighbors' or relatives' favors in purchased goods rather than in personal services. When these costs are tallied, few women find these jobs more rewarding than selling vegetables (or other similar jobs) in the local market, where they can also keep an eye on their children, attend to household chores, or take time off to deal with family crises. This attitude is reinforced by the fact that there is little difference in status between the two kinds of jobs. A few informants who had been working in the public sector as blue-collar employees had given up their jobs after marriage or childbirth. Although they always regretted giving up the security of their jobs, they recognized that the work was not economically viable.

Zaynab, who sold soaked beans in the local suq, complained that it was difficult to support her family (herself, her unemployed husband, and their two sons) on the little money she made. When I asked why she did not go back to the factory job she had held before her marriage, she explained,

[16] See Hoodfar 1990 for further discussion and cases.

[17] The low figure also reflects the general structure of female labor market participation. In Egypt, contrary to Europe and most developing countries, the majority of women in the formal labor market are white-collar workers. For more discussion, see Hoodfar 1994.

[18] For a telling example, see Wikan 1980: 120–123.

Working in a factory is hardly an answer to my problem. They pay me around 30 pounds per month. But I have to get a bus there every morning and I have to take my two children to my mother who does not live nearby. I also have to pay some money toward their food, as my parents are too poor to be able to feed my children every day. Even if I take my lunch like most women do, there are still occasional miscellaneous expenses that arise in the factory. Worst of all, I cannot go to work in my old and patched gallabiya [loose, shirtlike garment]. I have to buy some clothes. By the time you add up all these expenses, more than half my income is gone. That will leave me with about the same money that I earn in the market. … If I am around the neighborhood, occasionally the better-off households call me to give them a hand, for modest pay. I can also look after my children and my home.

She added that if her salary in the factory were at least 50 pounds, then she would go back to her job, though if that were the case she would never have given up the job in the first place.^[19] Her response was typical of many of my informants.

Participation in the formal sector had a number of disadvantages besides the low salary level. Using public services and obtaining subsidized goods, though costly in terms of the women's time, accounted for even more substantial savings in low-income households. The inflexible and long hours of factory work critically impeded taking advantage of savings opportunities. For example, a kilogram of subsidized meat sold for 3.75 pounds at the government shops, while in the open market it was 8 pounds.^[20] This represents considerable savings for a household, even though a shopper may sometimes have to stand in line for as long as three to four hours.

Moreover, a shortage of subsidized goods meant they were only sporadically available in the cooperatives. Women who were not in the neighborhood at the time could not take advantage of these items. Such potential losses were important in discouraging women from participating in the formal labor market. Umm Sabah, who sold green vegetables in the local market, explained,

I earn little by selling girgir [a kind of watercress] and parsley, but because I am here in the vicinity I learn when there is meat, chicken, eggs, or other items in the gam'iya and I can always leave my basket with either my children

[19] Since then, blue-collar salaries have gone up, but so has the cost of living. Removal of considerable subsidies for foodstuffs has reduced the necessity to queue at co-ops, but now, with the new high prices, astute shopping has become even more important.

[20] For more examples and discussion, see Khouri-Dagher 1986 and Hoodfar 1990.

or a friend and run to queue. Sometimes other people queue for me so that I can attend to my business. This way I can buy items that otherwise we could never afford to eat. But if I worked in the factory, since I am unskilled and illiterate, I would perhaps earn ten more pounds and I would have to buy more clothes and spend the rest on transportation. When I come back home in the evening I would have to buy everything from the open market at higher prices and we would lose more than my extra wages.

Despite the reduction in subsidies that has pushed the cost of food much higher, the informal sector remains attractive to women, because it offers them the flexibility they need to cope with a double day. One woman, the mother of five children, told me,

Here I sell green vegetables and when I have a little more capital I also sell some cheese. At times I carry my babbur [a small kerosene stove] to the suq and cook there, so that when my children come home from school their food is ready.

While some women may do some of their food preparation at the market, others operate from their home or their doorstep. In times of crisis, a woman might stop her business operation for a while, perhaps for as long as a few months, and then return to it.

To maximize income, women often simultaneously engage in quite diverse activities. For instance, a couple of informants had managed to buy a sewing machine and were making simple clothes for the neighbors. They also raised chickens and rabbits on their roofs. Others worked as dallalat (traders, usually in cheap clothes and bedding), midwives, handywomen, and so on. Most women were interested in finding ways to increase their income, though their very small capital (often not more than a few pounds) limited them. If they had to invest more than a few pounds, they were extremely cautious about entering a risky business. Because the local suqs were periodically subject to police raids, which always resulted in the destruction of their total stock by the police, they were reluctant to invest in fruit and the more expensive vegetables that would yield higher profits.

Fatigue and loss of good health were additional costs of working in blue-collar jobs. Mona gave up her factory job because after deducting all costs, her net gain was about 5 pounds a month for spending more than eleven hours away from home and her children each day. By the time she arrived home she was so tired that she could not even tend to her basic domestic responsibilities. For a large majority of women, participation in the labor market is only a means to earn income. If this

income is not enough to improve their material life, then it is a pointless exercise. I was often reminded that, in contrast to white-collar desk jobs, low-grade factory jobs were hard work. Those who had worked in a factory were the first to speak out against it.

It is demanding. Working conditions are often terrible. The foreman treats you badly. Worst of all, the time schedule is very inflexible: it starts too early in the morning, often way out of town. By the time one returns home, one has no energy to do housework. When there is a family crisis women feel torn between home and the factory.

These ideas were echoed in Mona Hammam's report (1979) on the working conditions of female factory workers. A female interviewee told her, "What woman in her right mind wants to be a factory worker? I am glad it is not encouraged in the text (she was referring to the adult literacy book taught in the factory). We do it because we have to, not because we choose to" (Hammam 1979: 7).

The time a woman offered to the labor market was very carefully assessed against the reward, whereas a man, because he has no designated responsibility at home other than as the provider, can work overtime or accept errands outside his primary job to increase his income. A man can also use his workplace network much more effectively to find a second job. It is in this differential context that the situation of men and women in the labor market should be assessed.

Since few informants had actually given up their jobs in the formal labor market, I wondered if their preference for the informal market could be merely a rationalization of their situation, guided by awareness that access to formal sector jobs was very limited. When asked if it was difficult for women to find jobs in the formal sector, one out of forty informants (twenty-nine of whom did not have cash-earning activities on formants (twenty-nine of whom did not have cash-earning activities on a regular basis) said it had become very difficult for educated women.^[21] Nineteen women said that there were plenty of jobs available; thirteen said the problem was that they were too poorly paid. Seven women said one needs good contacts for the better-paid jobs and that it was possible to find such contacts through neighborhood networks.

Although it is clear that in the 1980s, jobs for unskilled women were not plentiful, this was not the reason they did not participate in the

[21] This informant had been looking for an office job before she married. After her marriage she worked in her husband's shop to be close to her two babies and hoped to get an office job when her children were older. Now that they have sold their shop, she mostly tutors high school children in the neighborhood for a fee.

formal labor market. Many women did not even attempt to look for jobs beyond their residential areas, because their absence would place too great a burden financially and otherwise on their households. Others employed in this sector had resigned after having children.

Women use the same cost-benefit analysis as men, but because of the sexual division of labor, their opportunity costs are much higher than men's, particularly during the family-building cycle. The irony is that it is often at this period that households go through severe income stress. Therefore, women resort to finding other ways of contributing cash income to their households (Moser 1981; Khouri-Dagher 1996; Singerman 1996b).

Examining the situations of the three women in my sample who continued with their blue-collar jobs after marriage and childbirth will throw more light on the complex web of issues involved. Preference for the informal market seems clear. Karima completed primary school and since then had worked as a skilled employee in a pharmaceutical factory. She said she had continued to stay with her job because she was considered well paid (as an educated, skilled blue-collar worker, she was paid a little more than unskilled workers) and workers were provided with transportation.

Eighteen years ago, it never crossed my mind or my husband's that I should give up my job. Just before my first child was born we moved into the same building as my mother so that she could look after my children. All along I had hoped to continue my education and get my high school diploma, which would qualify me for a white-collar job. But once the children were born it became increasingly difficult to study and after some years I gave up. Since I had more education than most other workers in my factory at that time, I was appointed to a better position. So I continued to work. But in the last ten years inflation has made a mockery of my earnings. However, since I have worked there for eighteen years, I feel it is a pity to give up my pension now. If I work a few more years, perhaps I can retire with a small pension.

She and other older informants explained that blue-collar jobs were considered well paid and there was much competition for them. No one would think of giving up such jobs on the grounds of marriage. Mothers and relatives used to help with child care, and since in those days there were less severe housing problems in Cairo, most people could live near their relatives.

Another woman, who worked serving tea in an office, said that she continued to work because her husband was not reliable: he was lazy,

incapable, and very often unemployed. Her job provided her with some security, and to supplement her income she also raised some chickens and rabbits on the roof of the apartment building. Moreover, her office was only a half-hour walk from the neighborhood. As she put it, "I am lucky my mother lives in the same alley and looks after my two children so that I can go to work. I do not know what would happen to me and the children if my mother were not here." Her mother, who after the death of her husband had to bring up her three children single-handedly, insisted that this woman continue with her job because it offered her an old-age pension. Her advice was that "a husband you cannot count on in his youth would not be better in his old age."

All three informants who had continued with their blue-collar jobs had their mothers and families living very close to help them with child care and shopping; this reduced the cost of going to work. As Cairo grew in physical size and population, however, it became more difficult for women, especially those from low-income households, to live near their kin. For women, this meant the loss of a support network that traditionally could be counted on. In the absence of substantial wage increases or other improvements in working conditions, we might expect to see increasing female participation at the lower level of the job hierarchy in the informal, rather than the formal, labor market.

As women have lost much of their traditional network of support (particularly in terms of child care) due to the geographic mobility that commercialization and industrialization encourage, neither the state nor the modern sector of the economy has responded to women's special circumstances in any meaningful way, even though the society and economy would be in disarray without their services (Folbre 1986a, 1986b; Waring 1988; Glazer 1990; Smith 1990). This situation effectively marginalized women, especially as new standards of child care place more demands on women's labor. Moreover, domestic responsibilities have caused women to concentrate on similar cash-earning activities (for instance, selling vegetables in the same neighborhood, or competing for domestic service jobs or even white-collar employment such as teaching, which offers more flexibility). This situation further disadvantages women because such concentration and competition result in a lower profit margin or wage.

Self-Employment

Self-employment remains the most viable option for most women with little education or professional skill. Although there are

no reliable statistics on the number of women who are self-employed (including petty trading), a walk around any major urban residential area, particularly in Cairo, makes it clear that the local suqs are dominated by women.

Petty trading continues to be an option. These women generally trade in foodstuffs and clothing and use either their homes or a nearby market as their base. Women who trade in clothing often have more capital and are more likely to work from home. Their customers are neighbors and friends, who often pay in installments. These traders are less likely to be first- or second-generation migrants, mainly because they require knowledge about where to buy wholesale goods and need established personal contacts, sometimes so that they can buy goods on credit or even on commission from wholesalers. These female dallalat are often Cairenes who had to move out of their neighborhood in old Cairo because of the housing shortage.

Most small traders, however, are vegetable sellers with very little capital. They buy vegetables from nearby villages and sell them in the market. Their income varies from one-half pound to one and a half pounds per day, depending on the variety of vegetables they sell. More expensive vegetables yield a higher income but demand more initial capital. Income from dealing in fruit is even higher, but fruit is traditionally men's domain and it is rare for a woman to sell fruit in the market.^[22] The number of hours women put into this business varies; a few times a week they must leave their homes as early as dawn to purchase produce.

Women often identified lack of capital as their major problem. Many thought if they could put together enough money to buy a proper kiosk or open a small shop, they could earn much more money without investing more time.

Another type of employment for a woman was involvement in her husband's business. Many of the small shops or kiosks were set up to supplement the household's cash income, and wives and occasionally other household members were expected to participate while the husbands were away at their other jobs. (This was a strategy favored by many households, particularly those whose male heads were low-paid public sector employees.) Many of the informants (both male and female) said this kind of employment was most suitable for women because it did not break either traditional or modern codes of conduct,

[22] Customers too were often men because the tradition continued whereby men buy fruit and women buy vegetables.

and when there was a family crisis, a workable schedule could easily be arranged.

It is ironic that out of my ten female informants who worked—some of them over eight or ten hours a day—in the family business, only one saw herself as a "working" wife. This was one of the two Coptic women among my informants. In fact, dissatisfied with her husband's contribution to the household and with the help of her brothers, Umm Sahar had established a small business dealing in small clothing and decorative items. She used to travel to the port cities of Port Said and Alexandria to buy stock at lower prices, but her husband had disagreed with the idea and, fearing financial catastrophe, took over managing the shop. Although she continued to invest more time and energy in the shop than he did, he gave her only housekeeping money, which she thought was not even half the combined income from the shop and his salary. She believed he was unimaginative, timid, and generally not very good with money, but because he is a male/husband, he thought that he should control the finances.

Umm Sahar was frustrated by her husband's action and many times reminded me that Muslim men do not take over their wives' business or their money. She thought that was because Muslim wives could get a divorce, while the Copts have no easy way out of their marriage and the men know it. It was also a question of what belonged to whom: for Muslims this was more clearly defined in religious terms than for Copts, who consider husband and wives one unit, usually under the control and guidance of the husband. Moreover, Muslim men, according to religious principles, are obliged to support the family regardless of their wives' income. Umm Sahar thought Muslim women have a better chance of making their men work hard for the family and of protecting their own wealth without appearing too materialistic.

The situation, however, was not as clear-cut as Umm Sahar presented it. I had noticed that husbands never helped or interfered with their wives' businesses, and women were very careful to avoid any conversation in the presence of their husbands concerning what they earned. When a husband occasionally asked, the wife would jokingly warn him that the man of the house shouldn't have his eye on the woman's few piasters (100 piasters equal one Egyptian pound). Other women would pretend they did not hear, or, more often, they would complain that they did not make much money even before their husbands began to speak. While the husbands regarded asking their wives and children to help with their businesses as a right, and many wives accepted that, the

reverse case was never true: a husband almost never helped with his wife's business. When I discussed the issue with my informants, they were all convinced that they should not ask their husbands to help because, as one women said, by nature men have sticky fingers and would develop an appetite for the few piasters their wives earn. Another woman said if something came up and she could not attend to her business, she would ask her children or a friend to take over. If they could not help, she would simply close her business because, as she said, once men take over, that is the end of your business.

None of the women handed over their income to their husbands, but they made a point of telling me that they usually spent their money on what the husbands could or would not spend on the family. Women who participated in their husbands' businesses did not receive an independent wage from this activity, but since it provided them with a good knowledge of the level of income, they felt they were in better bargaining positions vis-à-vis their husbands (Nadim el-Messiri 1977; Hoodfar 1988).

Petty production among women was mostly limited to foodstuffs. Some women cooked the food at home and sold it with or without the help of their husbands in the street. Other women cooked and sold types of traditional "fast foods" outside the doors of their homes. The capital to buy the necessary inventory for this job was usually the cost of a babbur (kerosene burner) and one or two big pots, which most women possessed in any case. As a result of the gradual removal of subsidies, the price of vegetables and bread had increased sharply and the highly competitive market reduced the profit margin, which was already quite low, and many were forced out of the market.

Raising chickens, pigeons, and rabbits was another form of production that women normally engaged in. Although most women raised a few chickens on their balconies for subsistence use, only those with roof space could raise larger numbers for trading.^[23] In any case, many women who had been raising poultry in the past had to give it up, for as the buildings in Cairo grew taller, space had become more of a problem. As well, factory production and cheaper imported frozen chicken meant raising poultry was no longer profitable as a small home enterprise. In Egypt, women have traditionally controlled the production and marketing

[23] Looking from the roof of the building I lived in, all visible roof space was covered by chickens, rabbit cages, and geese. A few of the better-off households also kept a lamb on their roof or tethered to their door.

of poultry and rabbit. However, men usually owned and staffed the modern factory production facilities, even though women were more knowledgable about the product.

A smaller cash-earning group was made up of self-employed artisans such as hairdressers, tailors, and traditional midwives. These women had often learned their trade as part of their upbringing. A few women hairdressers and tailors had served their apprenticeship with other women who were in business locally. Generally, households with longer urban experience were more likely to send their daughters to a formal training center, if they could afford it. Tailoring and hairdressing were considered by most informants as occupations suitable for women, but very few women were qualified enough to be considered skilled: top tailors and hairdressers in the neighborhoods were men. This was partly because men had more capital to invest in their enterprises and partly because women had not had the chance to improve their skills. The majority of these female tradespeople had turned a room of their flat into a workshop or rented a room in the neighborhood for their business. It was rare for these women to want to move out of their locality, where they were able to attend to their domestic responsibilities while they worked. At times, women would forgo the possibility of a bigger profit to work near their homes.

Wage Workers: Maids And
Handywomen

It is almost universally assumed that in an urban setting, women can always find jobs as domestic servants (Jelin 1977; Chaney and Castro 1989). However, the Egyptian case is much more complex. Domestic work is not the monopoly of female workers; it is estimated that in Egypt up to one-fourth of paid domestic workers are male (Youssef 1976; Scott 1985).

During the 1980s, many Egyptian maids (particularly older women) migrated to oil-rich countries where they were paid at least ten times what they earned in Egypt. Higher wage levels, primarily as a consequence of migration, made it possible for many households to keep their children, particularly their daughters, at school or at home rather than send them to work as maids and servants in Cairo. Concurrently, the rapidly rising cost of living and new job opportunities in the private sector encouraged upper-middle-class women to enter the labor market. Hence the need for child care and other domestic services increased

while the supply remained limited. The acute shortage of maids inflated their wages from about 20 to 100 pounds or more, a wage higher than the basic salary rate of a university graduate in any government office.

However, although domestic service was relatively well paid and increasingly considered a feminine job, few women among the very poor had access to such a job. To be a maid was no longer an unskilled job, even if the market, because of its tendency to undervalue domestic skills, failed to recognize this. In the past, most maids worked under the supervision of the female head of household and were trained to perform certain tasks. However, those middle-class female heads of households were no longer at home, and they needed a person to manage the housework and child care in their absence. Most low-income women did not qualify for these positions, because they lacked the necessary skills required to work in middle-class households. Leaving aside the ability to use many different types of electronic household gadgets, a wide gap had developed between the low-income strata and the middle classes in the knowledge and practice of hygiene.^[24]

There were other serious impediments for poor women who wished to take advantage of a maid's lucrative wages. To find a job as a servant in a middle-class household required very good vertical social contacts who could introduce a woman to potential employers and supply references for her. Without such assurances, few people were prepared to hand over their house keys to strangers. However, very few poor women had such contacts. Among the middle classes it is often assumed that the low status of the job prevents poor women from taking advantage of these job opportunities. My data, however, do not support such assumptions. Not surprisingly, the very poor women were often younger ones with young children and few if any marketable skills and without an influential network as many were married to unemployed or underemployed husbands. These women were under continual financial stress and accepted any earning opportunity that arose. Some of these women worked, as maids or handywomen, in lower-middle-class households, which were generally more accessible to the poorer strata. However, as inflation ate into the income of these households, it became less possible

[24] In the past and in more traditional communities in Egypt, there was little difference in taste and hygiene practices or in the values held by the rich and poor (Rugh 1979). The major difference was that the poor could not afford to practice those values whereas the rich could. However, the gap between the cultural values of the rich and the poor has greatly widened in modern society as the rich adopt more global consumption values.

for them to afford a maid, even one who was paid far below the market wage. Other women worked for wages close to nothing for their better-off neighbors who would call on them to work as handy women on occasions such as weddings, childbirths, and funerals. It appears, therefore, that the shortage of domestic servants was not caused by the unwillingness of poor women to work as maids but by the dearth of skilled and well-connected maids.