Well-educated citizens are necessary to ensure economic, social and cultural growth in all countries. But Egypt has a problem: The country’s smartest are leaving for good.
Youssef Azmy moved from Egypt to the United States of America immediately after graduating from college. He wanted to do something different -- to go in the opposite direction of his classmates. Having grown up in Cairo, the capital of Egypt, Azmy did not feel like he had a lot options in his home country, and these factors ultimately lead him to move away. So just two days after graduating from The American University in Cairo in 2013, Azmy moved to the American state of Maryland.
And Azmy is just one in 4.3 million Egyptians currently living in a foreign country, according to data from European University Institute.
This phenomenon is known as “brain drain.”
The main reason Azmy wanted to live abroad, was because he did not want to follow in his peers footsteps after graduating from AUC with a degree in Multimedia Communication.
“I wanted to get out of my comfort zone, and not follow a specific trend, or the common path, that many people follow after graduating from AUC. Many go on to work in the corporate sector or for a smaller company, but I wanted to do something that would be viewed as almost orthodox,” says Azmy.
The newest available data from European University Institute shows, that 4,7 percent of Egypt’s population is currently living abroad. And according to data from the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) that number is rising. From 2013 to 2014 the number of Egyptians acquiring “migrant status” rose with 17 percent, Daily News Egypt reported last year. What Azmy describes as “not having many options,” is a typical symptom of countries experiencing the brain drain phenomenon. High unemployment, low salaries and few career opportunities are just some of the factors that contribute to brain drain. When taking a closer look at the numbers, it is no wonder that especially young Egyptians want to leave Egypt. According to data from Trading Economics, a website gathering and analyzing economic factors and indicators, 3.6 million Egyptians are currently unemployed. Almost half of them are between 20 and 24 years old. The wages are not exactly keeping well-educated Egyptians in Egypt either. In average, high-skilled Egyptians earn just under 4000 Egyptian pounds a month, which is the same as 445 American dollars. In the United Kingdom, this average is 2612 dollars, in France it’s 3428 dollars and in the US the average is 4130 dollars a month. Although there is also significant differences in the cost of living in the four mentioned countries, the huge wage gap is still contributing to pushing Egyptians out of Egypt.
So where are all the Egyptians moving to? Use the interactive map to discover where the Egyptian migrants would rather live.
Source: European University Institute, report published in February 2016.
There is also a gap within the Egyptian society. This gap concerns the imbalance in the number of men and women migrating out of Egypt.
While exact data on the gender balance is close to non-existing, a report written by Nadine Sika published by the European University Institute found that women in the MENA region, the Middle East and North Africa, constitutes the lowest percentage of female migration in the world. Almost half of the world’s migrants are women, while only 38 percent of the MENA region’s migrants are women.
When women do migrate they tend to move abroad with their husband and family - not on their own. Dr. Ibrahim Awad, director of Center for Migration and Refugee Studies at The American University in Cairo, explains this gender gap by introducing three different factors.
First of all, Egyptian women do not work. Only around one fifth of women between 15 and 64 are working or looking for a job, so women would not be looking for a job abroad, when the majority is not working at all.
“You also have to look at demand, and what kind of labour force that’s requested. Back in the days there was a huge demand for female teachers for example,” Dr. Awad says.
Conservatism has also had a huge impact on whether women will migrate or not. Dr. Awad explains, that in the 1970’s and 80’s more more Middle Eastern women would migrate, simply because it was more accepted socially. But with the rise of a more conservative interpretation of Islam in the beginning of the 2000's, female migrants became more scarce.
Dr. Awad also explains, that the gender balance is far more equal when it comes to migration to Western countries, than countries in the Gulf. This is partly because migration to the Gulf countries and some European countries tend to be temporary. Of the 1.1 million Egyptian temporary migrants in 2008, 97 percent were males.
“In general, men don’t migrate to integrate, and because the migration is only temporary, they are not accompanied by their wife and family,” the AUC professor explains. In average, the US, Canada, and Australia receive a more gender balanced migration flow than Italy and the Gulf countries.
Back to Youssef Azmy in Maryland. He is today doing digital marketing for a start-up company in his home state. His passion for marketing was something he discovered back in Egypt, after an internship with the soda giant Coca-Cola.
“I fell in love with marketing and advertising, and with time I shrank that scope of focus to digital marketing specifically,” Azmy says.
Do you want to know Youssef Azmy better? Hear more about his experiences in this video interview.
After living and working in the US for the past three years, Azmy has been greatly influenced by the American culture and the people he has met along the way. That has given him new perspectives on how different people are, and that he has to be conscious of that while maintaining his own values.
“But as much as I have been been influenced, I’m sure that I have also influenced other people. I value the Egyptian identity more, now that I have seen and experienced other cultures,” Azmy says.
To the question “Do you ever miss Egypt?” Azmy’s answer comes promptly: “I definitely do. It sounds like a cliché, but there is something about Egypt. I can’t really put a finger on what I miss, but I do miss Egypt.”
This is not the first time Egypt is experiencing a big wave of migration. To learn more, click play below.
On Youssef Azmy's old college, The American University in Cairo, a lot of students have given thought to whether or not they want to move abroad after graduation. Most want to leave - but eventually return to Egypt. Use the arrows to scroll through the gallery to meet some of Egypt’s smart natives and read about their thoughts on moving abroad after graduation.