Labour Force Participation in Iran the Role of Education and Gender

Abstract

Higher education attainment and labour force participation, especially among females, have been increasing for the past decades in Iran. If labour market is not flexible enough to adjust with the new trends, it may have negative effect on female education and participation rate. In this paper, we investigate the effects of higher education attainment on labour force participation, with an emphasis on female education in Iran using the data from the household budget surveys for the period 2001-2007. We use a logit model with cross section and pooled data and control for personal and household characteristics such as age, gender, marriage, and family income. Our findings show that participation rate is at maximum for middle-aged groups, and the married people are of more participation rates in labor market than current and former singles. The results also indicate that probability of labour force participation increases with the level of education especially for females and decreases with the family income.

Keywords

• labour force participation
• higher education
• gender
• logit model
• iran