J00, C81, C83, J64 </AbstractSection> Copyright Assaad and Krafft; licensee Springer. 2013

Marriage is the single most important economic transaction and social transition in the lives of young people. Yet little is known about the economics of marriage in much of the developing world. This paper examines the economics of marriage in North Afri

It is by now well established in the public health literature that health and nutrition in the first years of life are critical to health and wellbeing later in life. In this paper, we examine the patterns of inequality of opportunity in health and nutrition outcomes, such as height-for-age and...

This paper provides an overview of the employment experience in the Middle East and North Africa in the past two decades. The oil boom of the 1970s and the resulting international migration permitted an expansion in public sector employment and a redistribution of the labor force from countries...

In this paper we undertake a comprehensive analysis of wage formation in the Egyptian construction sector, which emplyed about 10 % of the non-agricultural labor force in 1995. A sizeable majority of the workforce in this sector is frequently without work. At the same time data on labor market...

Early childhood is the most important stage of human development. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), there is little research and inadequate investment in this crucial stage of life. This book assesses the state of early childhood development (ECD) in MENA from before birth through age...

It is well-established that Arab labor markets share certain common characteristics, including an oversized public sector, high unemployment for educated youth, weak private sector dependent on government welfare for their survival, rapid growth in educational attainment, but much of it focused...

The Arab Spring constitutes perhaps the most far-reaching political and economic transition since the end of communism in Europe. For too long, the economic aspirations of the people in the region, especially young people, have been ignored by leaders in Arab countries and abroad. Competing...