Heba Farida Ahmed Fathy El-laithy


Heba Farida Ahmed Fathy El-laithyHeba Farida Ahmed Fathy El-laithy is a key expert for the Socioeconomic Impact and Social Safety Net development. Dr. El-laithy has a strong background in statistical analysis, and is currently Professor of Statistics at Cairo University’s Faculty of Economics and Political Science. She received her PHD Degree from Sussex University in United Kingdom. She is a key poverty and inequality expert who has contributed her expertise to several poverty assessments and poverty alleviation program evaluations in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, authoring and co-authoring seminal reports on poverty, inequality poverty alleviation and social safety net development in the MENA and ESCWA region for the World Bank, and many others. Dr. El-laithy has published papers on issues including the gender dimension of poverty, social risk management, and monetary poverty, multidimensional poverty and food security. Recently she authored or co-authored the following: Determinants and Measures of Inequality, (2015) in Economic and Social Development of the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Countries, by Ayadi, R., Dabrowski, Marek, De Wulf, Luc (Eds.), published by Springer” and “Equality of Opportunity for Children , in Egypt, 2000–2009, Policy Research Working Paper number 6159, 2012, World Bank.




Papers Published in World Economics:


Multidimensional Deprivation in Egypt

This paper aims at constructing an MPI for Egypt tailored to its deprivation aspects, and at monitoring simultaneous deprivations that adversely affect Egyptian people and poor. It adds the employment and social insurance dimension, which is generally the sole means of production owned by poor and deprived people. Results show that multidimensional headcount ratio is 33.3 percent in 2018, which is higher in rural than urban areas, for female-headed households than male-headed households, and for households with less educated heads. Egyptians are mostly deprived in the education dimension.

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Measuring Happiness Among Egypt’s Youth

This article aims to assess happiness among young people aged 18–29 years in 2009 and 2014, using a multidimensional Happiness Index among Youth (HIY), based on the Survey of Young People in Egypt (SYPE). Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis are applied to examine the robustness and efficiency of the index. A multinomial model is used to study the main determinants of happiness among young people. The main results of the study are that young men are happier than young women. The educational level of the head of household has a positive, significant effect on happiness.

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Mobility in Income Poverty Between 2010-2015 in Egypt

This study assesses poverty dynamics in Egypt during 2010-2015 and examines the characteristics of transient poor people. Reliability Index, Relative and Absolute mobility are used to assess mobility. The results showed that there is a substantial amount of mobility between 2010 and 2015 and deterioration in the relative positions is larger than the improvement in the same period. Households with uneducated heads, with temporary jobs, outside establishments and with no social protection are more likely to remain poor.

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Measuring the Impact of Agricultural Finance on Rural Inequality: Evidence from Egypt

Evidence suggests that financial development and improved access to credit not only accelerates economic growth, but also reduces household poverty and income inequality. Using Egyptian household survey data evidence it is found that a 1% increase in agricultural wages causes poverty to decline by 6.6%. Agricultural wage increases lead to the largest decrease in overall income inequality where a 1% increase in income from agriculture wages will cause overall inequality to fall by 0.049 percentage points: equivalent to a fall in the Gini coefficient by 18.8%. A regression analysis shows that receiving formal loans increases non-agricultural net revenues by 2.94 times whereas credit increases a household’s agriculture revenues by 2.08 times.

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