The share of women in Afghanistan’s labor market has shrunk to roughly one worker in 20 over five years since the Taliban returned to power, according to a report published by the International Labor Organization (ILO) on Tuesday.
The ILO estimates that in 2026, the level of women’s participation in Afghanistan’s workforce will be only 5.1% — the second lowest rate in the world — amid severe restrictions on women’s access to education and employment. The organization called for urgent measures to overcome the “serious exclusion” of women from economic activity, noting that this is also necessary to strengthen the resilience of Afghanistan’s economy overall.
The Taliban returned to power in August 2021 amid the withdrawal of U.S. and other NATO forces, ending a 20-year period when women enjoyed relatively broader economic and educational freedoms after years of harsh Islamist rule.
Changes in the labor market and the situation of women
The UN organization warned of “significant demographic and institutional changes” in the labor market since 2021, many of which have worsened the situation for women. The level of women’s participation in the workforce has dropped from 16.5% in 2020 to 5.1% in 2026. This is the second lowest rate in the world — lower only in war-torn Yemen.
Young women who are not in education, employment, or training (NEET) accounted for 84% of the corresponding age group, compared to 76% in 2020 and 68% in 2019. Among young men, the NEET rate was below 30% and has been declining after peaking during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Meanwhile, the UN Development Agency reported that one of the few areas of growth has been women-owned enterprises, which have increased roughly tenfold, although this is largely due to extremely limited opportunities for other employment. “Afghanistan cannot build a resilient labor market while such a large part of its population remains excluded from economic activity,” said Tite Habiakare, senior coordinator and head of the ILO office in Afghanistan.
Overall state of Afghanistan’s economy
The report notes that Afghanistan’s labor market has remained “under significant pressure” five years after the Taliban came to power, only partially recovering from the collapse of 2021. Afghanistan’s GDP fell by approximately 15% when the Taliban returned to power amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the withdrawal of Western troops and financial aid. In 2022, the economy was still in deep recession and only later barely reached positive growth rates, remaining far below pre-Taliban levels.
The number of employed began to grow in absolute terms but not fast enough to keep up with population growth — both natural and due to the return of emigrants. As a result, the share of the population that has a job remains almost unchanged — at just under one-third. The document also calls for increased investment in collecting representative data on the workforce. The ILO warned that its estimates are largely based on modeling, which “is subject to significant uncertainty and should be interpreted with due caution.”
Impact of external factors and migration
The large-scale return of emigrants, especially from Iran and Pakistan, has become “one of the defining challenges for Afghanistan’s labor market,” the report says. More than 6 million Afghans returned from Iran and Pakistan from 2023 to the end of May 2026. This surge was driven by “a combination of political, economic, and security factors.”
The report also cites World Bank forecasts, according to which this could halve the share of remittances in Afghanistan’s economy — from approximately 4% of GDP in 2020 to about 2% of economic output. “Since February 2026, the crisis in the Middle East has added even more uncertainty for Afghans living in Iran, along with the continuation of return policies,” the ILO stated.
The ILO also warned that the war in Iran creates additional risks for Afghanistan — through overall rising inflation, food and fuel prices, trade and transport disruptions, and an increase in the number of possible returns from Iran. About 70% of workers, especially low-skilled ones, were at least moderately vulnerable to crisis-related factors such as energy prices, while approximately 30% experienced only minor impacts. The report also noted a sharp rise in inflation over the past 12 months: from less than 1% in May 2025 to about 8% in May 2026. The ILO warned that such growth “disproportionately affects poorer households and reduces real incomes, especially among informal workers.”
Source: Deutsche Welle
