Unemployment is an ominous phenomenon that affects a large segment of the society under the rule of mullahs. In this regime, with its misogynic policies, women are deprived of many social rights. One adverse effect of this discrimination is that the percentage of unemployed women tops that of men. Women are compelled to stay at home.
The unemployment problem for women is so serious and catastrophic that the regime’s officials are forced to acknowledge it. This is despite the fact that the number of women with university degrees is far higher than with men; meaning that their education enables them to become better managers. Mehr news agency quotes Soheila Jelodarzadeh, a regime female official: “The head of women’s labor union of the country reiterated on the unemployment of women being twice that of men and added that today, we can see that women either equal or surpass men in educational degrees. Currently, 67% of university graduates are women.”
On August 11, 2013 the Mardom Salari newspaper wrote that: “Despite the growing tendency of women to enter the job market, the rate of unemployment for them is far more than the men. The rate of unemployment for women of 15 to 29 years of age has increased from 29.9% in 2005 to 38.3% in 2013. For this age sector, the rate of unemployment was 29.5% in 2006, 29.5% in 2007, 31.8% in 2008, 39.7% in 2010, and 40.3% in 2011.”
During all the years of rule of the mullahs – reformist or not, including Ahmadinejad’s era – under the pretext of strengthening families, women were driven from work place to household jobs by the introduction of significant restrictions for them. Part-time work, encouraging work away from traditional work places, reducing working hours, and increasing holidays for women … all are policies that have driven women away from work and to the house thereby restricting their participation in society, in the economic realm, and increasing their unemployment rate. According to the National Census Center, women only make 13% of the active population of Iran with some estimates putting their unemployment figure at 40%.
The unemployment rate is so high that the regime’s officials are admitting this reality, especially when political gains demand it. On World Labor Day, Alireza Mahjoub, General Secretary of Labor Home, pointed to the fact that unemployment for women is twice that of the men. The ILNA news agency quoted him on April 29, 2013: “Women’s unemployment rate is twice that of men and their participation is one fourth; this is women’s laborers most pressing issue…” A representative of the 9th parliament stipulated: “The rate of 25% unemployment for women is in no way acceptable and this is while this rate for women between 15 to 25 years of age is over 35%.”
The Ebtekar state-run daily of February 24, 2013 wrote: “11.2% of the work force was unemployed in this season. The rate of unemployment for women has been more than men in the cities with respect to villages. For women between 15 and 29 years of age, according to the National Census Center, 670,671 women were unemployed in the spring. This number reached 724,000 in summer and stood at 517,143 in autumn. The percentages from spring to autumn were 37.5%, 42.3% and 33.8% respectively as compared to men that was 22.6%, 20.1% and 20.4% which shows an almost twofold unemployment rate for women with respect to men.”
Employed women mostly work in small workshops that fail to abide by labor laws and the salaries are very low. Women employed in these workshops have no insurance or labor services. This problem becomes more pronounced when we see that many unemployed women are also supporter their families. Their crime is that they are women in the misogynic tyranny of mullahs.
