Iranian female-headed households’ material well-being during sanctions and post-JCPOA periods

Abstract

In the recent decade, the number of female-headed households has been growing in the Islamic Republic of Iran. It has been shown that Iranian female heads struggle with numerous socio-economic challenges. Yet, various aspects of their economic well-being remain unknown. Over the same period, sanction-induced economic pressure inflicted a wide range of economic difficulties on Iranian households. This paper investigates how Iranian female-headed households’ material well-being has changed over the past decade compared with male-headed ones. In particular, we focus on two consecutive time frames: post-sanctions and post-nuclear deal periods. Using household-level data first, we create income and consumption-based measures of material well-being, and then we investigate changes in these measures relying on OLS and quantile regressions. We find that female-headed households’ material well-being has declined during the sanctions period. We also discover urban–rural, gender, and class disparities in terms of material well-being losses. Indeed, rural economically disadvantaged female-headed households seem to be more vulnerable to adverse sanctions-induced shocks than other households. Our analysis of the post-nuclear deal period reveals that the progressively declining trend in female-headed households’ material well-being appears to be stopped during this period.