Cairo: Four years after his graduation from a law school, Islam Ali has no permanent job, a situation that has dimmed his chances of tying the knot any time soon.
“Marriage? Not on my agenda. Two years ago, I went to the family of the girl I wanted to marry. They rejected my proposal for her because I have no fixed job and do not have enough money for the cost of marriage,” the 25-year-old man says.
Ali, the eldest son in a family of six, says he has tried his hand at several casual jobs to help his father, who is a government employee.
“I have worked as a wallpainter, an assistant to an electrician and a salesman at a supermarket. I could not continue in any of these jobs for more than months. Maybe I bear part of the blame for this because I haven’t been determined enough to prove myself. However, my bosses, who hardly knew how to read and write, would scold me for the slightest mistake .”
Ali has reached the conclusion that his life in Egypt is doomed and he has to look for better prospects elsewhere.
“I am contacting my friends abroad to help me get a respectable job for a good salary. I’m afraid my life here will come to an end before I could fulfil my dream of being financially independent and having my own family.”
According to recent official statistics, young people aged between 18 and 29 account for 23.6 per cent of Egypt’s population of around 87 million.
Unemployment rates in the Arab world’s most populous country is officially estimated at 13 per cent, although independent experts think the figure is higher.
Egypt’s economy has been battered by more than four years of unrest since the 2011 uprising that forced long-time president Hosni Mubarak to step down.
Incumbent President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi, who took office more than a year ago, has launched several long-term mega projects, which young people say do not generate enough jobs in the near future.
“How long should we wait until we can get respectable jobs?” says Ahmad Fat’hi, a commerce school graduate as he takes a sip of minted tea at a street corner coffee shop in Cairo. “Television channels and newspapers keep telling us that a bright future awaits us. But when will this really happen?”
Fat’hi, 27, calls himself a lucky man. “I’m the only son of my widowed mother. She gives me generous pocket money. She even keeps telling me to get married because she wants to have a grandchild. But I don’t think I will fulfil her dream soon. She is ready to pay all the costs of marriage. But I am not sure if I’d be able to spend on my family without having a good job.”
High marriage costs in Egypt are widely believed to be responsible for a rise in the numbers of unmarried people in the country where in the past young people married as early as 18 years of age.
In Egypt, a would-be husband is expected to own or have a rented apartment for his new family. He traditionally offers a gift of jewellery to his bride and shares the cost of the furniture. This usually means a five-digit bill in a country where around 40 per cent of the people are believed to live below the poverty line.
It took Ahmad Sabry seven years after graduation from university to be master of his destiny as he says.
“At first, I applied for several vacancies related to my studies at the faculty of science. I wanted to work at a medical lab or a pharmaceutical company, but my attempts were never successful,” recalls Sabry, now aged 29. “Therefore, I decided to change my plan and set up my own business.”
He now owns a small shop selling perfumes, which he composes. “I started my business three years ago with a bank loan guaranteed by my family’s house. Gradually, my shop has attracted customers because of the cheap prices of products and their good quality.”
Last year, Sabry got married and had a baby boy two months ago.
But not all young Egyptians are so persistent and self-motivated, according to Yousuf Fadel, a 62-year-old pensioner.
“This generation, whether boys or girls, are spoilt. They want to begin at the top, not from the bottom of stairs as we did,” Fadel, a father of five, says. “In our days, we married and even had children while living in the family house. Today’s youth are obsessed with independence, but are not ready to work hard to achieve this independence.”
Fadel, whose children are now married and live in separate houses, says that he had to sell over the past years the six feddans (acres) he had inherited from his father in order to pay for the costs of his children’s marriages.
“Every now and then I give them money to help them. They and their families are extravagant and don’t save anything for difficult days.”
Disagreeing, Ala’a Mahrous, another pensioner aged 69, feels sympathy for young people.
“Their days are hard. With no guilt of their hands, the youth pay the price for long years of wrong policies in this country,” says Mahrous, who has no child.
“In our days, you could get a job with a primary school certificate. Now most of the unemployed people are university graduates,” he adds. “We used to marry at the age of 18 or 19 at a cost of a few pounds. Now, a young man will need thousands of pounds in order to get married. From where will these poor youth get this?”
There are more than 13 million unmarried Egyptians aged above 35, according to the state-run Central Agency for Mobilisation and Census.
Experts have repeatedly warned against the social and psychological repercussions of the phenomenon.
“The Egyptian society has undergone deep changes in recent years,” says Khalid Abdul Moneim, a sociologist. “Materialism has dominated the society’s way of thinking amid an increase in economic problems. The main victims are young people, who feel frustrated because they cannot lead a normal life and build a family.”
Abdul Moneim blames these woes on detrimental behavioural patterns among young people such as drug-taking, sexual deviations and radicalism.
“Society — both the government and people — will benefit a lot from taking the youth’s problems seriously and try to ease the pressure on them. The youth need motivation to bring out the best of their thoughts and energy before they lose the best of their life.”
