Iran

Iran’s 2022 protest movement, ‘Women, Life, Freedom’, revealed the extent of public support for women’s rights. The regime made no legal concessions, yet behaviour changed.

When female labour reforms fail to align with employer incentives, they can deepen rather than reduce gender disparities in the labour market, as shown by Iran’s 2016 reform.

International sanctions are used as a powerful tool of statecraft, but their broader societal consequences are often overlooked. Since 2012, comprehensive sanctions on Iran have drastically eroded its middle class, undoing decades of social progress ...