title: Women in Iran
title: education and labor economics
titleType: Subtitle
Creators: name: Mirazimi, Seyedehmina
Publisher: name: University of Iowa
Year: 2022
Subjects: Developing Economics
Education Economics
Fertility Decline
Wage Distribution
Gender studies
Iran
Labor Economics

description: An extensive body of literature highlights the importance of education and socioeconomic factors on fertility behavior and female labor force participation. Iran was the first part of the developing world to experience a significant decrease in fertility, and fertility in the region remains less than that in Asia and middle-income countries. Similarly, women's educational attainment, which is known to have an impact on fertility via multiple channels, appears to be higher in the region. Several studies document the importance of increasing women's education as a key factor contributing to the increase in female labor force participation in developing countries. This dissertation aims to examine the influences of educational attainment and socioeconomic factors on Iranian women's fertility decisions and their participation in the labor force.
description: In the first chapter, I estimate the effect of Iranian women's education on fertility outcomes based on the Iran Statistics Center household censuses from 1996, 2006, 2011, and 2016. Iran has experienced one of the most dramatic fertility declines in the last four decades worldwide. For the purpose of identifying the effect of educational attainment, I constructed a new data set of the number of elementary and secondary schools each year in each region of the country and used these numbers of elementary and secondary schools at ages 7 and 12 as the measure of maternal education. In addition to the impact of opening new schools on the decision to pursue further education, it should also directly influence fertility behaviors through the educational system. I found that education has a negative effect on the population of children in both urban and rural areas of Iran. The number of families with no children and those with only one child in Iran's urban and rural areas also increased with more years of education. Most studies have concentrated on the return on investment from education in terms of female employment and earnings. In contrast, higher education yields several benefits not reflected in the wages earned by educated women. Furthermore, policymakers and educators must understand and estimate the effect of education on human capital to Evaluate and examine investments in education in middle-income and developing countries. Accordingly, my findings indicate that estimations of the returns of women's education should also consider their social and demographic characteristics.
description: In Chapter 2, I examine the effects of education and fertility on female labor force participation (FLFP) in Iran through the utilization of a large sample of repeated cross-sectional data from three censuses (1995, 2005, and 2011). To explain the endogeneity of these variables, I used the number of universities within the cities where the women reside as an instrumental variable for education and the preference for male children as an instrumental variable for fertility. My research shows a positive relationship between higher education and female participation in the labor force in Iran. Due to their geographical differences, I conducted separate studies among Iranian women in the north and south of the country. As a result of my empirical analysis, an Iranian's FLFP increased by 29 percent in the northern region and 27 percent in the southern part with each additional year of tertiary education. I noticed, however, that the correlation between the FLFP and fertility in Iran is much weaker when comparing the effect of higher education.
description: The third chapter in this thesis examines the wage disparities and gender distribution in Iran using micro-level data from the Iranian statistical center's Household Income and Expenditure Surveys between 1994 and 2019 for the purpose of quantifying the gender wage gap. According to my research, the extent and trends in the gender wage gap in Iran vary considerably among women. They are primarily influenced by having children at home, occupations, industries, and levels of education.