Higher Education Expansion in Egypt : Women’s Capabilities and Agency from Access to Workforce Integration

Abonaem, Doaa and Cin, Melis (2025) Higher Education Expansion in Egypt : Women’s Capabilities and Agency from Access to Workforce Integration. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

The rapid expansion of higher education in Egypt has created unprecedented access for women, with enrolment rates reaching near parity. This expansion has been widely promoted as a driver of socio-economic development, yet its impact on gender equality, particularly in the Global South, remains uneven and understudied. Using a feminist interpretation of Sen's Capability Approach, this research investigates how social norms, institutional structures, and labour market dynamics shape Egyptian women's experiences from access to higher education through workforce integration. The study employs feminist narrative inquiry, analysing the lived experiences of 25 Egyptian women across socioeconomic backgrounds and geographic regions through in-depth interviews. Their narratives reveal three critical phases of constraint and opportunity: (1) access to higher education, (2) experiences within higher education, and (3) transition to employment Findings highlight how conversion factors, including familial expectations, financial constraints, geographic disparities, and institutional cultures, intersect to shape women's opportunities. However, this study challenges the assumption that quantitative expansion automatically translates into enhanced capabilities and agency for women across their educational and professional trajectories. Pre-university experiences show women navigating conditional support or outright opposition through navigational agency. Within higher education, women develop academic and social capabilities while confronting persistent gender norms, particularly in STEM fields and experiencing sexual harassment. Most critically, the study identifies a paradox: despite educational gains, labour market integration remains constrained by occupational segregation, pay gaps, and caregiving expectations. ii This research examines how social norms, institutional structures, and labour market conditions shape the capabilities and agency of Egyptian women from access to higher education through integration into the workforce. It makes three principal contributions: First, it extends the Capability Approach to Egypt's higher education context, identifying limitations of quantitative metrics in assessing gender equality. Second, it clarifies the role of navigational agency in mediating structural constraints. Third, it demonstrates that expansion without addressing institutional cultures and labour market structures results in increased access without proportional gains in agency or opportunities. Policy implications include the need for gender-sensitive institutional reforms, anti-discrimination measures addressing harassment and STEM barriers, and labour market interventions that recognize care responsibilities. The study concludes that without addressing these deeper structural issues, higher education expansion will remain an incomplete project for advancing women's capabilities and agency in Egypt.