The number of female head of households in Iran increased by 26.8% from 356,117 in the Iranian year ending March 2012 to 439,985 in the year ending March 2020.
A female householder is defined as a single or married woman older than 18 years old who is the sole or main income producer due to reasons, such as divorce, separation or husband’s death, incarceration, addiction or missing-in-action.
According to a report by the Center of Statistics of the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare, the population of working female householder also rose by 23.1% from 339,284 in the year ending March 2012 to 417,566 in the year ending March 2020.
Female householders’ economic participation rate and their unemployment rate stood at 12.5% and 5.1%, respectively, in the year ending March 2020.
In the same year, the economic participation rate and unemployment rate of women heading a one-person household, i.e., single women living alone stood at 8.8% and 6.5%, respectively.
The ratio of female-headed households to the total number of households increased from 13.1% to 13.7% during the eight-year period.
There were 15 female householders for every 100 male householders in the year ending March 2012; that ratio increased to 16 in the year ending March 2020.
The provinces of Sistan-Baluchestan and Gilan with 20.1% and Hamedan with 17.3% had the highest and West Azarbaijan with 9.9%, Kurdestan with 10.1% and Hormozgan with 10.8% had the lowest number of female-headed households in the year ending March 2020.
In nine provinces, namely South Khorasan, Yazd, Gilan, Mazandaran, Qazvin, East Azarbaijan, Markazi, Zanjan and Alborz, more than half of female-headed households were one-person households (single women living alone) in the year ending March 2020.
The number of such women increased by 41.4% from the year ending March 2012 to March 2020. Tehran, Lorestan and Hormozgan had the highest number of single women living alone.
Most female-headed households fell within the first and second income deciles, the first two poorest income strata (45.2% and 22.4%, respectively) while 7.8% and 8% of them fell in seventh and 10th income deciles.
Income deciles are groupings that result from ranking either all households or all persons in the population in the ascending order according to income, and then dividing the population into 10 groups, each comprising approximately 10% of the estimated population with first being the poorest and 10th being the richest.
The report also shows 50.4% of female householders in the year ending March 2020 were literate, 10% married, 75.2% widows and 3.9% were never married.
The highest proportion of female householders fell in the age group of above 75 years with 18.88% and the smallest proportion were of those below 15 years with 0.01% in the year ending March 2020.
The highest proportion of single women living alone fell in the age group of above 75 years with 31.27% and the smallest proportion were those between 15-19 years with zero percent.
*** Labor Market in Fiscal 2020-21
Iran’s unemployment rate, the proportion of jobless population of ages 15 and above, stood at 9.6% in the last Iranian year (March 2020-21), indicating a 1.1% decline compared with the year before.
According to the latest report by the Statistical Center of Iran, a total of 2,474,063 Iranians were unemployed last year. Men’s unemployment stood at 8.4% while the rate for women hovered around 15.6%. Over 1.79 million men and 678,399 women of ages 15 and above were jobless last year.
The unemployment rate was 10.4% for urban areas (two million people) and 7.2% for rural areas (464,726 people).
SCI put last year’s labor force participation rate—the proportion of the population of ages 15 and above that is economically active either employed or looking for job—at 41.3% or 25.73 million people, registering a 2.8% decrease year-on-year.
Men’s and women’s economic participation rates were 68.7% and 13.9% respectively in the same period, down 2.4% and 3.1% YOY.
SCI reports that 21.4 million men and 4.33 million women of ages 15 and above were economically active last year, i.e., they were either employed or looking for a job.
Underemployment, the condition in which people in a labor force are employed for less than 44 hours of service per week, stood at 9.5%, down 0.4% year-on-year and was higher for men and those living in rural areas.
Last year’s underemployment rate for men and women stood at 10.4% and 4.2%, respectively, while it was 8.2% for urban areas and 13.2% for rural areas.
Unemployment rate for university graduates stood at 14.2%, posting a 2.5% decrease YOY. Higher education unemployment rate for men stood at 10.4% and that of women stuck around 22.8%.
The share of higher education unemployment from the total unemployed population was 38.9% last year, which indicate a decrease of 2.7% YOY.
The unemployment share of male and female graduates from the total unemployed population stood at 27% and 70.4%, respectively, while the share of higher education unemployment from the total unemployed population were 42.1% in urban areas and 25.3% in rural areas during the period.
Employment is defined as persons of working age engaged in any activity to produce goods or provide services for pay or profit, whether at work during the reference period or not at work due to a temporary absence from a job, or to working-time arrangement.
Last year’s employment rate was 37.3% (23.26 million), down 2.1% compared with the year before. Employment rates for men and women were 62.9% and 11.7%, respectively, which constituted 19.6 million men and 3.65 million women.
The employment rate was 36.2% or 17.26 million in urban areas and 41% or 5.99 million in rural areas.
The share of employment of university graduates stood at 25% of the total employed population, wherein male and female graduate employment was 21.4% and 44.3%, respectively. Graduate employment rates in urban and rural areas stood at 30.8% and 8.1% of the total population of job-holders.
The services sector employed 49.3% of the Iranian employed population (11.46 million) last year, 1% less than the year before, whereas industrial and agricultural sectors provided 33.3% and 17.4% of jobs respectively.
Over 7.74 million were employed in the industrial sector, indicating an increase of 1.3% compared with the year before and 4.04 million worked in the agriculture sector, posting a 0.3% decrease YOY.
The services sector consists of wholesale and retail trade; restaurants and hotels; transport, storage and communications; financing, insurance, real estate and business services; as well as community, social, education, health and personal services.
The services sector employed 9.43 million men and 2.03 million women last year; over 6.8 million men and 941,566 women were working in the industrial sector, and 3.36 million men and 678,689 women worked in the agriculture sector.
Services sector accounted for 58.7% or 10.11 million of all jobs in urban areas and 24.7% or 1.35 million of jobs in rural areas. The industrial sector made up 34.9% or 6.02 million of the jobs in urban areas and comprised 28.7% or 1.72 million of employment in rural areas. This is while 6.5% or 1.12 million of the total jobs in urban areas and 48.6% or 2.91 million of the jobs in rural areas were in the agriculture sector.
Reviewing a five-year period from the fiscal 2016-17 to 2020-21, economist Sahand Faez says, “Although the total unemployment for men and women registered a decline during the five-year period, the unemployment rate for women was twice as much as men’s. However, men’s unemployment and the total joblessness rate were more or less equal. While the unemployment rate for men averaged 9.69% over the years under review, the average unemployment rate for women was at 18.49%.”
