Work and Women's Unemployment

An examination of labor market statistics over the past half-century shows that while the economic participation rate of women has fluctuated, the overall trend has shifted in favor of increasing the economic participation rate of Iranian women, alongside a rise in their unemployment rate. The economic participation rate indicates what percentage of the working-age population, for example, individuals aged 10 and older, is active, which can mean either employed or unemployed. Unemployed individuals within the active population are those who have been seeking work during the specified period. A time series analysis of labor market statistics over the past six decades shows that the economic participation rate of women in 1956 was 9.22%, with over 576,000 Iranian women either employed or seeking work. By 1976, this rate increased to about 13%, with the number of women either employed or seeking work reaching approximately 1.45 million. Twenty years later, in 1996, the economic participation rate for women decreased to a single-digit figure of 9.1%, although the active female population that year exceeded two million. However, the trend in women's economic participation took a different turn afterward, and despite the ups and downs experienced, by the summer of 2016, it reached its highest level, approaching 16% (15.9%). This trend indicates that Iranian women, who have also claimed a significant share of academic capacities during these years, have a strong desire to participate in the labor market. This interest and presence have led to new records in economic participation rates, but it has also pushed women's unemployment rates to high figures, with the unemployment rate for women being around 22% this summer, nearly double the overall unemployment rate. In this program from 'A, B, Economy,' we have looked at the femininity of unemployment and the characteristics of the labor market from the perspective of women, which I invite you to listen to.