Iran’s young men and women face serious challenges in their transitions to employment
and marriage. We study the factors that affect these transitions using the 2005 Schoolto-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 our analysis of the
transition to employment, which employs discrete-time hazard models and probit models
of women’s desire and actual labor force participation, we 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, we 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 we find that the transition to marriage
is delayed significantly by both work experience and increased education. We discuss the
relevance of these findings in designing policies to help these youth in their transitions.