Cost Benefit Analysis of Higher Education by Educated Women in Iran: The Tale of Self Fulfilling Prophecy and Low Labor Force Participation

The number of women with professional degrees, occupying high-end jobs and positions has been increasing all over the world. The fact that the number of Iranian women in universities and colleges in the country has been increasing steadily during the past 10 years and more than 60% of all those admitted to the universities and colleges in Iran are women, has caused noticeable increase in labor force participation and professional and high end jobs and positions for Iranian women. This is basically due to cultural, legal and structural obstacles towards women’s employment in Iran, which in turn leads to self fulfilling prophecy of negative outcome in their cost benefit analysis of time, energy and resources spent. This, in turn, debilitates and discourages them to get involved in professional arenas. A national representative sample of 908 university educated Iranian women responded to questions about their experience after their graduation. The results showed a self fulfilling prophecy at work that led them to believe that the time, energy and costs involved were not compensated and they didn’t think that getting a higher professional degree had been a profitable investment for them