August 19, 2016
President Rohani has postponed the annual civil service exam, saying not enough women have applied because not enough government jobs are opened to them.
The president said the exam would be re-scheduled once more women seek to join the civil service, which has long been a Rohani goal, and once more jobs are made available to them.
Of course, passing the civil service exam doesn’t guarantee a job in the government. One reason few women apply is that hiring officers tend to prefer men. The announcement didn’t say how the Rohani Administration would address that bias.’
The daily Vaghay-e Etefaghieh said only 30 percent of the 3,000 jobs advertised for the civil service exam were open to women.
The World Economic Forum’s 2015 Gender Gap Index ranked Iran 141st of 145 surveyed countries.