There is suggestive evidence in the literature that one crucial driver of the rise of the Islamic movement in the Middle East has been a decrease in social mobility among the increasingly well-educated youth. Using nationally representative household survey data from Egypt, this paper tests this claim by examining the extent to which changes in intergenerational educational mobility across cohorts have been mirrored by changes in the economic mobility between fathers and sons. Results suggest, among others, that the decline in employment opportunities in the government sector did indeed not affect the well-educated in an equal manner.