Set in the Great Depression in the US, the American author John Steinbeck published his award-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath in 1939. The novel, still assigned as a key reading to high-school students to this day, depicts the hardships that working-class families, especially migrant workers, endured in search of minimum standards of living in the United States at the time.
More than eight decades later, on 27 June this year Egypt awoke to the news of the deaths of 19 young women and the injury of three (aged between 14 and 22 years old) from Kafr Al-Sanbsa in Menoufiya, a governorate in the heart of the Nile Delta, in a road accident on their journey to work at a grape packing warehouse in the nearby Sadat city.
Kafr Al-Sanbsa is a village in a governorate which has seen improvements in its human development indicators, particularly in health and education, but it still faces challenges related to poverty and income inequality.
Among the deceased were a first-year engineering student at Menoufiya University saving money for her education, a young woman who was due to marry in three months’ time and using her income to buy appliances for her new home, a secondary school student who was to get her grades the following day, and three sisters from the same family.
The mother of a nursing student who died said that she had asked her daughter to rest for the day given it was already the weekend, but the girl had indicated that the money would help the family with their living expenses.
The girls typically leave for work at 7am and come back by 7pm for $2.6 per day, barely above the World Bank’s international poverty line, which is currently $2.15 per day, expressed in 2017 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). They pick the fresh grapes in the early morning from the fields and pack them on the assembly line throughout the day so that they are fresh on the shelves for the export market on the following day.
An initial investigation into the tragedy revealed that the accident was due to a truck driving at top speed on the wrong side of the road by a driver who had reportedly fallen asleep. He crashed into the microbus carrying the girls, their driver, and their hopes for a better tomorrow.
Was the truck the only reason for the tragedy? Or was the underlying macro-economic policy framework also insufficiently responsive to current challenges?
Egypt has shown mixed progress on UN Sustainable Development Goal 8 (SDG 8), focusing on decent work and economic growth. While the country has experienced some economic growth and has reduced unemployment rates in recent years, challenges remain, particularly regarding the quality and sustainability of the jobs created and the need for more decent work opportunities.
Like elsewhere around the globe, Egypt has been significantly affected by multiple and overlapping global, regional, and national crises in recent years, including the Covid-19 pandemic, the conflict in Ukraine, the escalation of violence in Gaza, and disruptions in the Red Sea.
These challenges have placed considerable pressure on the national economy, contributing to the depreciation of the Egyptian pound and a subsequent rise in inflation. In a context where macroeconomic policies may not always fully prioritise employment creation, many families have become increasingly vulnerable to poverty.
Official data indicate that approximately one third of Egyptians live below the national poverty line. Moreover, more than one in five individuals are considered multidimensionally poor, experiencing deprivations in areas such as health, education, and living standards beyond income alone. Deprivation in employment remains a key factor contributing to the national Multidimensional Poverty Index.
While the Joads in Steinbeck’s novel set out for California on the “mother road” along with thousands of others in the Grapes of Wrath, the young women from Kafr Al-Sanbsa faced their fate on a road seeking employment, dignity, and a better future.
In today’s context, a road that remains less travelled in Egypt and many other parts of the world is that of pro-employment macroeconomic policies that can significantly address multidimensional poverty by promoting inclusive structural transformation and broad-based productive employment creation.
This involves fostering counter-cyclical fiscal and monetary policies to cushion economic downturns, as well as frameworks that support inclusive growth and decent work.
At the heart of structural transformation lies a shift in both employment and output towards higher productivity sectors, particularly “leading sectors” that leverage economies of scale and generate positive spillover effects across the economy. These changes are understood to boost productivity, which can translate into higher wages, reduced working hours, and generally better working conditions, provided these benefits are distributed equitably. Structural transformation is thus concerned with both the quantity and the quality of the jobs created.
Often, these sectoral shifts are accompanied by rural-to-urban migration, which can increase the risk of informal employment in urban areas but also intersect with rural development strategies. More narrowly, sectoral policies aim to encourage movement towards more productive industries and to upgrade products and processes across all sectors.
These strategies also typically involve investments in infrastructure and workforce skills, complemented by supportive macroeconomic, trade, and sectoral policies, all with the goal of enhancing integration into global markets. They also require a labour market that is inclusive, adaptive, and equipped to respond to structural and global shifts.
*The writer is International Labour Organisation Jordan country coordinator and a senior employment policy specialist for the Arab states.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 17 July, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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