Gender Gap; Women First Choice for Workforce Adjustment

A labor relations expert has expressed concern about the persistence of the gender gap in the economic sphere and the processes intensifying this gap. The latest unemployment rate for women has been announced at 17.3 percent, and from spring 1397 to 1398, 170,000 economically active women have left the workforce.

Mahnaz Qadirzdeh, a labor relations expert and women’s affairs activist, has described the decline of female employees and the reduction in women’s economic participation rate in the past year as concerning and peculiar.

A report from Iran’s Statistical Center shows that in spring 1398, the economically active male population increased compared to spring 1397, while the economically active female population decreased by 170,000 people.

ILNA news agency, quoting Mahnaz Qadirzdeh, writes: “What’s worse is that in the current spring, the number of employed women experienced a setback of 32,000 people. This was while in the spring of the previous year, the number of employed women had increased by more than 275,000 people.”

This labor relations expert has suggested that economic fluctuations and lack of financial resources in production units may have put women at the forefront of workforce adjustment options: “It has always been raised that women are willing to work for lower wages compared to men. This mentality has created a stereotype among employers, and on this basis, when they want to reduce labor costs, they turn to women. It is possible that the proposed salaries for women were so low that women have forgone the benefit of work and dropped out of the active population.”

A report from Iran’s Statistical Center on the workforce situation shows that in spring 1398, out of 27 million 339,000 and 431 economically active population of the country, 24 million 382,000 and 744 were employed and 2 million 956,000 and 687 were unemployed. The country’s economic participation rate in spring 1398 was 40.6 percent, with men having 65 percent economic participation compared to women at 16.1 percent.

Two months earlier, the Economic Studies Department of Tehran Chamber of Commerce had announced the inactivity of 28 million women from an economic perspective by publishing a chart on the employment situation of women in Iran in 1397. This chart was based on a population of 40 million and 200,000 women and statistics of 33.3 million women of working age, of which 5 million and 400,000 people were identified as economically active and the rest, three-quarters of whom were housewives, as economically inactive.

The Economic Studies Department of Tehran Chamber of Commerce had stated that 20 percent of economically inactive women are students, another 20 percent have income without work, and 1 percent are retirees.

Iran ranks at the bottom of the gender gap index table in the fields of health, education, political management, and economics.

At the conference “Women, Economy, Employment and Development” held in Arak in summer 1397, the rate of women’s economic participation in the central province was announced at 6-7 percent and in the entire country at 12 percent. At this conference, it was stated that out of 1,200 commercial cards issued in the central province, only 109 card holders are women.

Massoumeh Ebtekar, Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, announced in early September 1397 the formation of a “National Women’s Headquarters” in the near future and efforts to empower educated women, activate women in the field of production and employment, and employ more women at management levels. She declared in March 1398 that the unemployment of female graduates is two to three times higher than male graduates and called for strengthening and multiplying women’s entrepreneurship associations.

The government is obligated in the sixth development plan to reduce the unemployment rate to 8.6 percent by the vision 1400. For this purpose, programs such as rural employment plan, inclusive employment plan, home-based occupations, and organization of university graduates have been planned.

Massoumeh Ebtekar, Rouhani’s deputy for women’s affairs, called on Saturday, October 13, at a meeting in Zanjan for a mechanism in planning so that women are not forced to choose between marriage and education or between childbearing and employment.

Source: DW