Maternal Employment Shapes Daughters’ Employment Stability in Egypt: Evidence for the Intergenerational Transmission of Labor Force Attachment

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Research has documented how maternal employment influences daughters’ participation in paid employment. However, we know far less about how maternal employment during daughters’ adolescence relates to the daughters’ subsequent employment stability. Analyzing data from three waves (2006, 2012, and 2018) of the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey (N = 3,345) using structural equation models, this study compares the employment stability of women with and without working mothers during adolescence and examines how the influence of maternal employment on daughters’ employment stability varies with employment sector. Furthermore, a decomposition method is applied to determine the extent to which daughters’ education mediates the association between maternal employment and their employment stability. The results show that mothers’ employment is positively associated with their adult daughters’ employment stability. This intergenerational association is sector specific: mothers’ employment in a given sector only bolsters their daughters’ employment stability in the same sector. The daughter’s education mediates only a small portion of the intergenerational association in the public sector. The findings highlight the important role of Egypt’s institutional settings in configuring the intergenerational transmission of employment stability among women, and suggest that policies that support working mothers have the potential to bolster their daughters’ long-term labor market attachment.