Mass de-professionalization

The Iraqi government tried to maintain full employment by reducing the salaries of state workers and by fomenting public Works with a view to keeping the Iraqi Dinar in circulation and to boost consumer spending. But men left the public sector in search of better salaries in Iraq or emigrated (after paying a prohibitive tax of 200 dollars), and this led to mass de-professionalization. In 1996, the salary for a middle-range job in the public sector had devalued by up to 80% (between two and five dollars), while in the private sector it fluctuated between 17 and 43% depending on qualifications. The country saw an increase in private initiatives by those unemployed or who had quit their public sector job.

The situation for women was very different. During the war with Iran (1980/88), women had entered paid work en masse due to the terrible loss of men, but also because of progress in gender equality education. But because of the sanctions, formal female employment in the mid-1990s fell to its lowest rate since 1985. Unlike men, women stayed in the public sector —like Doctor Al-Kawazthe, in the photo above— because of state advantages for maternity leave. In 1993, women outnumbered men in public hospitals, being a majority in certain specializations and approximately the same in General Medicine. On the other hand, the large numbers of women quitting nursing because of a net fall in the purchasing power of their salaries was a well-known fact.