Education, Social Mobility and Religious Movements: The Islamic Revival in Egypt

Abstract

Muslim societies have been reshaped in recent decades by an Islamic revival. We document a contemporaneous decline in social mobility among educated youth in Egypt, the epicentre of the movement in the Arab world. We then develop a model to show how an unexpected decline in social mobility combined with inequality can produce a religious revival led by the educated middle class. The principal idea is that religion helps individuals to cope with unfulfilled aspirations by adjusting their expectations‐based reference point. By raising aspirations, economic development may make societies more prone to religious revivals.

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