Public Mass Modern Education, Religion, and Human Capital in Twentieth-Century Egypt

Public mass modern education was a major pillar of state-led development in the post-Colonial period. I examine the impact of Egypt's transformation in 1951-1953 of traditional elementary schools (kuttabs) into modern primary schools on the Christian-Muslim educational and occupational differentials, which were in favor of Christians. The reform granted kuttabs' graduates (where Muslim students were over-represented) access to higher stages of education that were previously confined to primary schools' graduates. Exploiting the variation in exposure to the reform across cohorts and districts of birth among males in 1986, I find that the reform benefited Muslims but not Christians.