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Youth Transitions to Employment and Marriage in Iran: Evidence from the School to Work Transition Survey

June 30, 2010

Introduction

Iran’s young men and women face serious challenges in their transitions to employment and marriage. The authors study the factors that affect these transitions using the 2005 School to Work Transition Survey (SWTS). As this survey contains detailed retrospective data of education, employment, and marital outcomes for youth ages 15-29, it provides a new and valuable tool for exploring the challenges facing these youth. In the authors’ analysis of the transition to employment, which employs discrete-time hazard models and probit models of women’s desired and actual labor force participation, they find that (1) the duration of unemployment increases secularly with men’s but not women’s education, (2) parental background significantly affects men but not women, and (3) labor force participation of a mother is the strongest predictor of a daughter’s labor force participation. For the transition to marriage, they find that job stability is the most important determinant of the age of marriage, as both years of employment and high quality employment contracts accelerate the marriage transition. Among women they find that the transition to marriage is delayed significantly by both work experience and increased education. The study discusses the relevance of these findings in designing policies to help these youth in their transitions.


This working paper is an electronic version of an article published as “Youth Transitions to Employment and Marriage in Iran: Evidence from the School to Work Transition Survey,” Middle East Development Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1, (2010) 89–120. DOI: 10.1142/S1793812010000198. (c) copyright World Scientific Publishing Company. http://www.worldscinet.com/medj/.