The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Iranian Female Unemployment in Relative to Male Unemployment

Abstract

COVID-19 emerged in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, and the new coronavirus quickly spread across the globe. The COVID-19 epidemic wreaked havoc on the economy and put people's lives and health at risk. The effect of COVID-19 on the labor market was characterized by a growing unemployment rate in many economies, which deteriorated the employment prospects of millions of people, especially women. This study aims to examine the impact of COVID-19 on female unemployment relative to male unemployment in the Iranian economy using the Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model. Although both male and female workers have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, our findings indicate that women have been more severely affected by COVID-19. In other words, women lost their jobs more quickly and for longer durations than men. Our findings show that because of the COVID-19 outbreak in Iran, female workers were more likely to be hurt and harmed than males. The impact of this shock on the labor market can be mitigated by policies such as banking system credits, unemployment insurance, tax exemptions for unemployed women, and the use of technology to promote remote working for female workers.