Egypt

Listening to NPR the other day, there was a good segment on why all this political unrest started in Egypt. Some major social and economic factors involving money, jobs, and marriage. Apparently in Egypt, most young people live with their parents until they can afford to get married, and then they move out of their parents and start families of their own. But it is very costly to get married in Egypt - you need a stake of money to get yourself started. In the last generation, basically, college-educated folks were guaranteed decent jobs (enough to pay for a family) and guaranteed good government benefits. Because of this, people started having large families. Now, those young folks are growing up - the population has doubled since the time Mubarack took office from 40mil-80mil and something crazy like 70% of those people are under 30. Not surprisingly, the government alone cannot guarantee jobs and benefits to all these people. They can't afford it. So young folks today are forced to work freelance type of jobs - jobs for which they are overqualified - and having trouble putting together a big enough stake to get married. Now, there are cultural implications here as well because being a conservative middle east/north african country, there isn't a vibrant "dating scene," or other ways for young folks to socialize and have a sex life. So you have this people in their late 20s and early 30s without strong job opportunities and without social and sex lives who are living with their parents and very little hope for the future. Now enter technology and seeing how other folks are living and organizing through facebook, etc, and it helps to explain this massive outpour of anger and frustration.