Investigating Factors Affecting Women Labor Force Participation in Iran’s Labor Market; emphasizing age and migration variables

Women comprise roughly half of active population of societies. Although the education of women is costly, they mainly have low rate of participation in the labor market. Using raw data of labor force surveys for Iran labor market during period 1397 to 1398, this paper investigates factors affecting Women Labor Force Participation (WLFP). The results of this research, which uses logit model for analyzing its data, elaborate that despite similarities (significance and the same direction of effectiveness in the number of children under seven, age, age square, and education variables), there are differences in urban and rural estimation results. While non-Iranian nationality in urban areas has increased WLFP, it is not true for rural equation. Also, the probability of rural women participation in the labor market will increase till a higher age in comparison to urban sample. It is noteworthy that education is the most powerful factor in the participation of urban women in the labor market. According to Iran statistics, the main reason of increased non-active population is family responsibilities. As results show, increasing the number of children under seven, in urban and rural areas will decrease WLFP and being married will decrease WLFP in urban regions.