In an attempt to send women back to their homes where many conservatives believed they belonged, workplace day-care facilities were closed. Compensation packages were introduced which encouraged women to retire after only fifteen years of work, or transfer their full salaries to their husband and resign or work part-time only.[1] Ostensibly, these programs would ease women's lives and make it possible for them to attend to their domestic and motherhood responsibilities. Despite the recent relaxation in rapid Islamization policies which had aimed to reform society mostly at the cost of women, as recently as 1992 the government introduced a bill allowing women to retire after twenty years of work. The government has reasoned that the bill compensates women's double day of household and labour market work, which together mean that twenty years of work outside the home are equivalent to forty actual years of labour; early retirement would also enable women to attend to their domestic responsibilities. However, after twenty years in the labour force, most women are no longer in the family building cycle and their children are grown up. Changes such as unpaid leave and the right to work in locations close to their homes (both advantages enjoyed by Egyptian women), which would benefit young employed women experiencing the pressures of raising young children and managing a new household, have not been introduced. The underlying purpose of the policy is clear: to reduce male unemployment by removing women from the labour market and offering the vacant positions to men. Consequently, as women Islamist activists have noted critically, women's public sector employment is reduced by 2 percent each year.[2]