Poverty rates in Egypt decline to 29.7% within year

CAIRO – 18 October 2021: Poverty rates in Egypt fell 2.8 percent during the fiscal year of 2019/2020, recording 29.7 percent, down from 32.5 percent in 2017/2018, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS).

According to the CAPMAS, this decrease reflects the success of the state's efforts to achieve social justice in conjunction with the economic reforms implemented by the state, which focused on the social dimension of development.

It explained in a statement Sunday that extreme poverty in Egypt (the percentage of people who cannot secure their food needs) decreased nationwide to 4.5 percent in 2019/2020, from 6.2 percent in 2017/2018, and this can be attributed to economic reform efforts.

Regarding the percentage of poverty according to the size of the family, it pointed to the increase in the percentage of the poor with the increase in the size of the family, saying, "The increase in the size of the family is a cause and a consequence of poverty at the same time, it is a result because poor families do not have sufficient social protection and therefore these families resort to increasing the number of children as a species from social protection when old or ill as a source of income.

CAPMAS noted that the family has a great responsibility in increasing poverty rates due to the increase in the number of its members, as it finds that 80.6 percent of individuals who live in families with 10 or more members are poor, and 48.1 percent of individuals who live in families with 6-7 poor members, compared to 7.5 percent of families with less than 4 members.

On the percentage of the poor according to the educational status, the Statistics Authority indicated that the level of education is the most closely related factor to the risk of poverty; poverty indicators decrease as the level of education increases, The percentage of the poor among the illiterate reached 35.6 percent, compared to 9.4 percent for those who obtained a university degree in 2019/2020. .

The percentage of poor among those with above average degrees was 15.2 percent, among those who obtained a secondary certificate, it reached 17.4 percent, and among those with a basic education, it was 33.1 percent, according to the statistics.