“Not Like Father, Like Son”: Public Sector Employment Reforms in Egypt

Abstract

The slowing of public sector hiring has been a tool for sector downsizing and one of the markers of the reform trajectory in public administration in Egypt. The effect of this long-term and non-confrontational approach to downsizing on the workforce of the public sector is captured in this article using a unique national panel dataset. The analysis shows that the share of public sector employment has declined in a pattern punctuated by a number of critical junctures that shaped the trajectory of the adoption of New Public Management (NPM)-inspired policies. The data shows that the sector workforce is becoming more educated, older, and slightly more feminized. Despite the specificity of the context of Egypt, the analysis furthers the study of public sector reform trajectories and the complexity of the contextualization of NPM-inspired policies in countries with a socialist legacy in the global South.