The migration out of Egypt in pursuit of job opportunities and an overall better life is an increasing phenomenon. Today, more people want to leave Egypt than stay and “make it better,” a common sentiment during the January 25th revolution in 2011. Since then, unemployment rose sharply from 9 percent in 2010 to 12.7 percent in 2016, according to Atlantic Council.
The increasing desire to leave Egypt, has shone light on two types of Egyptians trying to migrate out of Egypt. The first kind of migrants are the Egyptians who have the ability to obtain short-term visas to Europe in order to look for jobs and seek a better life abroad, while the second, more common type are the Egyptians who are not as “privileged.” These Egyptians are incapable of obtaining visas to Europe or elsewhere due to their status of poverty and therefore resort to illegal migration through the Mediterranean.
On September 21, at least 94 Egyptians were killed when a boat capsized off Egypt’s Mediterranean coast carrying around 600 refugees. That was only one of a couple of incidents where a group of Egyptians had attempted to illegally leave the country for a better life elsewhere.
According to the National Coordinating Committee on Preventing and Combating Illegal Migration (NCCPIM), “research shows that the main reasons Egyptians illegally migrate to Europe is to seek out higher paying jobs and improve their living conditions.” Most of the migrants out of Egypt suffer from poverty, unemployment and challenging economic and social conditions. These problems bridge the gap between the rich privileged Egyptians and the poor “lower” class migrants out of Egypt and demonstrates that both groups of people are only leaving Egypt in pursuit of a better life.
Dr. Ibrahim Awad, director of Center for Migration and Refugee Studies at The American University in Cairo.
The Egyptian youth are facing struggles in many aspects of their lives that are forcing them to look for opportunities elsewhere. They face challenges like poor quality of education and lack of job opportunities.
Over 20 percent of Egyptian youth aged between 15 and 29 want to live abroad, according to an official 2014 survey conducted by the Egyptian Center for Population and Egypt’s Statistics Agency, CAPMAS, state news agency MENA reported.
The survey results demonstrate that it is not uncommon to find young, well-educated Egyptians who live and study in Cairo, aspiring to do bigger things with their life - in a foreign country. According to an article published by Identity, an Egyptian social magazine, Egypt’s youth have increasingly left Egypt to seek opportunities abroad.
This phenomenon poses the question of whether the Egyptian authorities should be investing more of their efforts into making it easier to migrate the country, or providing more people with jobs and opportunities for a better life. According to Dr. Ibrahim Awad, an economics professor at AUC, “there needs to be an employment policy to create demand for people with higher education,” but until the country finds a way to provide both the youth, the poor and the general Egyptian population with more job opportunities and better overall social conditions, Egypt will continue to suffer what Dr. Awad refers to as “brain waste,” the insufficient use of highly-skilled brains.
Today's exodus of Egyptians is no new phenomenon to the country. Take a look at the timeline below to learn about Egypt's previous migration waves.