The importance of mothers’ educational and occupational attainments for understanding the
social mobility of their children, and particularly daughters, has been increasingly emphasized
as female labor force participation rates have risen in developed countries. However, few
studies have yet to examine intergenerational occupational mobility between mothers and
daughters in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, or contexts in which female labor force
participation remains low. In this paper, I use the 1998, 2006 and 2012 waves of the Egypt
Labor Market Panel Survey to examine the intergenerational dynamics of women’s
employment in Egypt. The findings demonstrate that mothers’ work status is highly predictive
of their daughters’ labor market outcomes, suggesting that there is an intergenerational
dynamic to women’s employment. In addition, there is a degree of continuity in the types of
work that mothers and daughters engage in. The findings suggest that the current decline in
labor force participation rates among female youth, and successful policies to promote higher
employment rates among young women, could have ripple effects for subsequent generations.