Women and Productive Capacity

Chapter Overview

1. Executive Summary

Iraq's largest human productive capacity gap is not hidden. According to the official assessment connected to the 2024 census and household surveys, the female economic activity rate was only 13.1%, compared with 65.9% for males, falling to 8% among rural women versus 15.1% in urban areas. These rates do not mean that 86.9% of women “do nothing”: unpaid household work, care and household production may not all fall within the definition of economic activity. They mean, however, that the formal economy and market use only a small fraction of the available female capability. ¹

The 2021 national Labour Force Survey provides deeper, albeit older, detail: women's labour force participation was 10.6%, compared with 68% for men; the employment-to-population ratio was 7.6% for women versus 58% for men; and women's unemployment was 28.2%, compared with 14.7% for men. Among young women aged 15–24, the NEET rate reached 52.3%, compared with 22.1% among young men. The difference between 10.6% in 2021 and 13.1% in 2024 must not be read as a precise trend before harmonising definitions and methods, but both sources establish the same fact: women's participation is very low. ²

The problem is not a simple lack of desire. In a World Bank social norms survey conducted in Baghdad, Basra and Nineveh in 2021, 52% of non-working women said they wanted to work, but only 10% were actively searching. Although 88% of respondents supported women's work in principle, acceptance declined when jobs involved returning after five in the evening, mixed-gender workplaces or private employment. Childcare, unsuitable jobs and weak family support also emerged among the main barriers. This was an urban sample rather than a national baseline, but reveals an important mechanism: general willingness does not automatically become actual labour supply when job conditions change. ³

Care is at the heart of the economic issue. The “Who Cares?” report found extremely low use of formal childcare in Iraq alongside clear demand among working mothers for better services. An International Labour Organization brief likewise identifies care responsibilities as a major reason for women remaining outside the labour force. The first National Human Capital Report notes that childcare falls overwhelmingly on women. Participation therefore cannot rise simply by training women and leaving the costs of care, time and travel entirely to their families. ⁴⁵⁶

Even when women work, much of their employment is concentrated in the state. The National Human Capital Report cites an assessment indicating that approximately 70.5% of employed women are in the public sector, compared with approximately 29% in the private sector, while the picture is almost reversed for men. In the World Bank's 2022 formal Enterprise Survey, women accounted for only approximately 7% of workers in surveyed firms; approximately 2% of firms had a female top manager and 4% had female ownership participation. These indicators concern the formal enterprise sample rather than the whole economy, but demonstrate weak private-sector absorption of women's skills. ⁶⁷

Iraq has a legal foundation rather than starting from zero. Labour Law No. 37 of 2015 prohibits direct and indirect discrimination and sexual harassment, provides equal pay for work of equal value, and stipulates maternity protection and workplace childcare subject to conditions. The Workers' Retirement and Social Security Law No. 18 of 2023 introduced maternity insurance into the social insurance system. Some general restrictions on women's night work or “strenuous or harmful work”, however, need modern review so safety is based on actual risk to each worker while retaining pregnancy and breastfeeding protections, preventing protection from becoming unintended occupational exclusion. ⁸⁹

There are also gaps in assets and finance. The World Bank's 2026 gender dashboard puts women's account ownership at financial institutions at 18.8% in 2024, compared with 40.8% for men, and saving at a financial institution or through a mobile money account at 7.09% for women versus 13.1% for men. Women's internet use was 72.3% in 2022, compared with 84.7% for men. These are not standalone explanations for low participation, but constrain women's ability to receive formal wages, build financial histories and access digital work or business finance. ¹⁰

Economic empowerment in this Vision does not mean making every woman a small-business owner, expanding government employment to compensate for private-sector weakness, or creating a separate “women's” market. It means a system enabling women to choose private or public employment, a profession, enterprise or flexible work, then protecting their ability to remain and advance. The Vision therefore adopts seven transitions: from rhetoric about participation to measurement; from invisible domestic care to organised care infrastructure; from hard-to-reach jobs to more suitable transport and hours; from legal protection on paper to enforcement and complaints; from isolated small-scale finance to accounts, markets and credit; from stereotyped training to growth sectors; and from policies concerning women alone to labour market redesign that makes participation possible for entire families.

The gain is not only social. A World Bank model estimated that raising women's participation in Iraq to the average of its income group could increase output per person by approximately 31% in the long term. This is a modelling scenario, not an automatic forecast; it assumes that the economy creates jobs and capital and demand adjust. It nevertheless illustrates the scale of the underused asset: as producer numbers and skills grow, and families gain another income source, saving, education, health, consumption and investment can rise together. ¹¹

Iraq does not need a new strategy from scratch. It has the National Strategy for Iraqi Women 2023–2030, the National Strategy to Prevent and Reduce Inequalities in the World of Work 2024–2028, the Decent Work Programme 2026–2029, economic empowerment plans and programmes under implementation. Vision 2045 must connect these pathways through a single outcome dashboard and a subsequent long-term phase. ¹²¹³¹⁴

Governing data decision: the 2026 Labour Force Survey completed its design phase in August 2026, but results were unpublished at this chapter's data freeze. The 2021 values therefore remain a detailed reference, official Iraqi 2024 data serve as a newer baseline where definitions align, and numerical targets for 2030–2045 remain policy commitments subject to recalibration as soon as the new survey appears. ¹⁵

2. From the General Labour Market to a Specific Participation Gap

The preceding chapter, “Training and Work”, completed a general system connecting education, skills, jobs and protection, but deliberately stopped at women's participation. The reason is methodological: many barriers preventing young men from reaching employment—skills shortages, weak matching, too few jobs and informality—also affect young women, who face an additional layer involving care, mobility, safety, family expectations, working-hour design and legal rules.

If Iraq delivers good training equally to men and women while childcare remains scarce, transport difficult, hours inflexible and complaints unreliable, women's outcomes will remain lower despite equal inputs. This is the central point: equal opportunity does not always mean giving everyone the same intervention; it means removing the constraint preventing someone from converting skills into outcomes.

Increasing women's participation alone does not solve Iraq's unemployment. If firms, production and investment do not grow, more women searching for work may temporarily increase unemployment. This chapter therefore presents participation not as an alternative to the productive economy developed in Part Four, but as a condition enabling that economy to use half the human skills base rather than a fraction of it.

3. The Central Question and Methodological Boundaries

The central question is: how can Iraq, between 2027 and 2045, increase women's participation in productive work, income, ownership and economic decisions by removing barriers that make work impossible, unattractive or unsafe, without turning women into employment mobilisation targets, expanding public employment as the solution, or creating a separate system isolating them from the general labour market?

This chapter addresses labour force participation, employment, transitions between inactivity and work, care and childcare, transport and safety, flexible working conditions, discrimination, harassment, pay and promotion, formality and insurance, financial inclusion and entrepreneurship, rural women, work-related norms and the data needed for measurement. It draws on education, skills and investment as foundations already established rather than detailing them again.

The chapter does not address women's political rights or protection from domestic violence except where directly affecting entry into or retention in work. Nor does it address reproductive health, healthcare and quality of life sectorally, as these belong to the next chapter. It does not set participation as an individual duty for every woman; participation indicates the system's ability to make choice available.

4. Definitions and Measurement Rules

5. Iraq's Baseline: Low Participation and Multiple Gaps

This dashboard does not support a single-cause explanation. Part of the gap reflects insufficient labour demand overall; part unpaid care; part mobility and working-hour constraints; part preference for public employment; part laws or recruitment practices; part inadequate information and finance; and part legitimate personal choice. Policy must distinguish these causes rather than construct one cultural judgement.

Care is also needed when combining different sources. The 13.1% figure for 2024 comes from a more recent Iraqi statistical system, while 10.6% for 2021 comes from a labour force survey with detailed methodology. Their difference is useful only as a signal that the number is not fixed; an annual growth rate cannot be derived before definitions and samples align.

6. The Real Problem Is Not “Does a Woman Want to Work?”

Public debate tends to focus on willingness: do women want to work? This matters but is insufficient. Entry into the labour market involves comparing a job's returns, costs and risks: wages, time, transport, childcare, flexibility, safety, family acceptance, the possibility of harassment, contract quality, insurance and advancement opportunities. If net returns are weak, women may not search even when they say they want to work.

Iraq's norms survey reveals this gap clearly: 52% of non-working women expressed a desire to work, but only 10% were actively searching. This is not evidence of “laziness” or a single “prohibition”; it shows that moving from willingness to search requires an opportunity that is practically feasible. ³

On the demand side, employers may not be entirely neutral. If they assume women will be absent for care, cannot work evenings or need special transport, they may prefer men before testing competence. These calculations are not addressed by moral appeals alone. Lowering employers' maternity costs through insurance, providing shared childcare, improving transport and offering clear schedules reduce the “perceived risk” of hiring women and make it a more ordinary economic decision.

7. Economic Empowerment Rather than Symbolic Rhetoric

“Empowerment” is widely used because it is broad, making it vulnerable to poor measurement. An organisation may announce training a thousand women, award hundreds of small loans or organise product exhibitions, then not know a year later how many women retained income, grew their enterprises or moved to better jobs. Vision 2045 does not treat activity itself as an outcome.

Economic empowerment is established when one or more of women's capabilities change sustainably: recurring independent income; an account they use; a job with a contract and protection; an increasingly demanded skill; genuine ownership; access to markets and suppliers; control over income decisions; or transition from unpaid/informal work into more productive, formal activity. A programme may fail despite its success photographs if none of these changes occurs.

The Vision also rejects confining women to small, “suitable” sectors that cannot expand. Home crafts, food and sewing may provide appropriate income for some women, but must not become the ceiling of national policy. Iraqi women should be able to enter programming, engineering, energy, manufacturing, transport, financial services, logistics, construction, care, research, management and entrepreneurship according to skills, choice and safety.

8. Unpaid Care and Childcare: Infrastructure for Work

Care is not a “family matter” outside the economy. When a household needs someone to care for a young child, older person or ill person, time becomes a resource like transport and electricity. If the burden falls almost entirely on women, the labour market loses hours and skills even where jobs exist. Iraqi evidence shows that care responsibilities are among the main reasons women do not enter the market. ⁴⁵⁶

The issue is not establishing government childcare everywhere. It is creating a trustworthy care market with multiple providers: licensed private nurseries, shared childcare among several firms, targeted support for low-income families, services near workplaces, hours compatible with shifts, and quality and safety oversight. The state sets standards, maintains registers and supports eligible groups; the private sector and community can provide much of the service.

Labour law requires enterprises employing women to establish individual or shared childcare facilities under implementing instructions. Requiring a single firm to bear the entire cost, however, may create a disincentive to hire women if implementation is poorly designed. Better solutions are shared childcare in industrial estates and commercial areas, and pooled funds or contributions from employers, families and public support where necessary. ⁸

Policy must extend beyond childcare: after-school services, short parental care leave and greater fathers' participation. If every care entitlement is attached only to mothers, the entitlement itself may increase the cost of employing women. The Vision therefore distinguishes maternity protection—specific to pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding—from care responsibility, which should be distributed as far as possible between parents, society and the state.

9. Time, Transport, Safety and Access to Employment

A job 90 minutes away or ending when reliable transport is unavailable may exist only on paper. Iraqi research shows that travel distance, return times, mixed-gender settings and safety alter women's and families' acceptance of jobs. The Vision therefore treats “access to work” as economic infrastructure rather than a personal matter. ³

The solution is not permanent women-only buses dividing the market, but safe, reliable transport for everyone, with additional measures where risks exist: lighting and stops, tracking and complaints, routes serving employment areas, shared employee transport in industrial estates, and standards for contracted transport drivers. Transport can be temporarily subsidised for new entrants to private employment where the cost barrier is clear, with support declining as income stabilises.

Time is addressed through flexible arrival windows, published weekly schedules, regulated shift exchanges and hybrid arrangements for some jobs where suitable. Flexibility means neither unlimited hours nor permanent availability outside work; it is a prior agreement allowing workers and employers to manage time without sacrificing production or rights.

10. Workplaces and the Law: Protection That Enables Rather than Excludes

Iraqi labour law contains strong provisions that must be implemented: prohibitions on discrimination in training, recruitment and working conditions, sexual harassment and degrading environments; complaint rights; and equal pay for work of equal value. The next challenge is turning these provisions into knowledge, procedures and enforcement: workers know the channel, employers know their obligations, inspectors can investigate, and courts can resolve disputes. ⁸

Conversely, general protective provisions restrict women's work in certain strenuous or harmful occupations and at night. The ILO Committee of Experts has cautioned that legitimate maternity protection must be distinguished from general sex-based restrictions that may become hiring barriers. The Vision proposes legislative and technical review linking prohibitions to occupational risk for any worker, with specific measures for pregnancy, breastfeeding and defined health risks, rather than excluding women from entire occupations solely because of sex. ⁸

Workers' Social Security Law No. 18 of 2023 offers an important opportunity by regulating maternity insurance and providing compensation under the law's conditions. As maternity costs move from individual employers to a broader social insurance system, the economic incentive to discriminate against women in hiring declines. Effective implementation and coverage matter more than the text alone. ⁹

10.1 Harassment and discrimination complaints

Complaints must be safe and prompt, protecting both complainants and those complained against through investigative safeguards. Every medium and large company and public entity adopts a written policy, confidential channel, anti-retaliation protection and clear procedures. The Ministry of Labour gathers anonymised data on complaint types, closure times and outcomes, without publishing names before a final legal judgement or decision.

Policy does not succeed merely through mandatory annual “awareness” training. Success means fewer repeated incidents, greater confidence in reporting, cases closed within reasonable time, and managers knowing their conduct is measured and subject to accountability. Prevention is as much management design as a cultural message.

11. Public and Private Sectors: Why Does Public Employment Seem More Attractive?

Women's concentration in the public sector does not prove that they inherently “prefer the state”. Public jobs generally offer more predictable hours, leave, insurance, pensions, clearer progression, social status and greater family acceptance. If private jobs offer longer hours, weaker contracts, harder travel and less childcare, choosing public employment may be rational.

The norms survey found that approximately 47% of surveyed women preferred the public sector for reasons including hours, benefits and social suitability. Government therefore cannot simply ask women to enter the private sector; it must improve private job quality while preventing itself from using public employment as a permanent unemployment programme. ³

The standard for 2045 is convergence in “foundational quality” between sectors: enforceable contracts, timely wages, social insurance, leave and rights, protection from harassment, complaint channels, training and promotion paths, and published hours. Salaries need not be identical; confidence that the rules work should converge.

12. Flexibility and Remote Work: A Productive Option, Not Domestic Isolation

Flexible work can be an important entry point for women with care responsibilities or long commutes, but can easily become a “discounted women's job” if it offers lower pay, fewer promotions and greater expectations of invisible work. The Vision therefore treats flexibility as a contractual right available wherever jobs permit, for women and men, rather than as a separate pathway.

Remote work regulates hours, equipment, data protection and performance assessment instead of continuous availability. It can begin for part of the week, during return after childbirth or as a temporary transition. Women must retain opportunities for in-person attendance, training, promotion and professional networks; digital isolation can reduce advancement even if it raises nominal participation.

Technology does not replace transport and childcare. Women's internet use is relatively high but below men's, and connection quality, skills and devices vary by income and area. Flexibility therefore belongs within a portfolio of solutions rather than serving as a universal answer. ¹⁰

13. Pay, Promotion and Leadership

Equal pay for work of equal value is established in law, but Iraq lacks a recent publicly available national baseline enabling measurement of the adjusted pay gap between women and men by occupation, hours, sector and governorate. The correct methodological decision is to build this measurement rather than import an international figure mismatched to Iraq's market.

Large companies and public entities begin by publishing salary ranges by grade rather than individual names, and internally analyse recruitment, promotion and pay differences after controlling for job and experience. Any unexplained gap triggers review, not an automatic finding of discrimination. This protects fairness and avoids producing a publicity statistic.

On leadership, the 2026 dashboard indicates that women's share of middle and senior management was 17.5% in 2021, while the enterprise sample shows female top managers are extremely rare. The goal is not placing a woman on every committee, but building a promotion pipeline: first job, assessment, leadership training, project responsibility and then management. If the pipeline breaks before middle management, a final-stage quota will not fix the underlying problem. ¹⁰

14. Entrepreneurship, Finance and Ownership

When employment is difficult, entrepreneurship is sometimes offered as a ready-made solution for women. This is mistaken if a “small business” substitutes for a good job. Entrepreneurship suits those with market opportunities, capabilities and an appetite for risk; it requires finance, accounting, procurement, customers and contracts, not merely motivational training.

The financial gap is clear: 18.8% of women owned an account at a financial institution in 2024, compared with 40.8% of men, according to the World Bank dashboard. Women's participation in formal business ownership is also low. Empowerment therefore starts with accounts, financial identity, payments, collections and records before loans. ¹⁰

The women entrepreneurs' package has four layers: accounts and digital payments; financial and accounting training tied to real enterprises; graduated finance with credit guarantees rather than permanent grants; and access to markets, procurement and supply chains. A procurement window or limited additional points for small enterprises genuinely owned by women can be piloted, with a definition of real ownership, safeguards against nominal fronts, and impact and cost evaluation.

In April 2026, the Ministry of Planning discussed proposals supporting women's presence in business, including company registration facilitation. In 2025, the ministry and the World Bank worked on training, preparation and support programmes for women entrepreneurs and displaced and returning women. Vision 2045 does not replace these initiatives; it requires tracking from registration to revenue, survival and expansion. ¹⁶¹⁷

15. Rural Women and Invisible Production

The official rural female economic activity rate of 8% in 2024 reveals a deeper gap than the national average. It may also conceal economic work not always appearing as a job: family farming, livestock rearing, home food processing, small trade and unpaid contributions to family enterprises. The task is not to rename every domestic activity a “job”, but to give productive women a route to markets, income, insurance and ownership where applicable. ¹

This policy integrates with the agriculture chapter: extension services reaching women, collection, marketing and cold storage, payment accounts, purchase contracts, transparent cooperatives, voluntary or suitable social insurance, and finance for small equipment linked to returns. Training should reach production sites rather than requiring women to travel to distant centres where transport is itself part of the problem.

Rural women are not one category. Farm owners, seasonal workers, contributors to family businesses, graduates seeking service jobs and women wanting digital work have different needs. Any “rural women's” programme that does not segment these situations will become a product exhibition rather than a productivity policy.

16. Skills and Sectors: Opening Opportunities Rather than Reproducing Stereotypes

The preceding chapter built a demand-linked training system. Here a simple gender test is added: can women enter the same programme, reach the training site and then the job? If electrical work, maintenance, programming or logistics are legally open but women lack facilities, transport, equipment or apprenticeship opportunities, theoretical openness does not become a career path.

Sector councils identify required skills without predetermined division into “men's jobs” and “women's jobs”. Safety equipment, sizes and facilities are designed for users. In high-risk sectors, health and safety standards apply to everyone, with pregnancy protections where needed, rather than a ban on an entire sex.

Care, health, education and services will remain important employment areas for women, but should not be the only ones. Conversely, women's entry into industry, energy, transport and technology is not a publicity objective in itself; it succeeds when jobs are productive, safe and offer advancement. The chapter's criterion is broader choice, not forcibly changing occupational composition.

17. Social Norms: Correcting Constraints and Perceptions Together

Reducing low participation to “culture” stops thinking, but ignoring norms is the opposite mistake. The Baghdad, Basra and Nineveh survey found strong general support for women's work in principle, with support collapsing under conditions such as late return or mixed workplaces. More importantly, it found a perception gap: people estimated community support for women's work far below the support respondents actually expressed. ³

This creates a specific intervention: correcting misconceptions and showing real examples of families, employers and women working safely, rather than a campaign blaming society. When fathers or husbands believe “everyone objects”, they may act according to a norm less prevalent than they imagine. Accurate information can change decisions without an identity conflict.

Communication alone is insufficient, however. If jobs are distant and unsafe and childcare absent, media messaging will not work. The Vision therefore connects changing norms to tangible outcomes: functioning transport, respectful workplaces, contracts, complaints, hours and childcare. Society changes faster when it sees successful examples repeated than when it hears abstract rhetoric.

17.1 Families as partners, not administrative permission authorities

Guidance programmes address whole families, particularly during the first transition after graduation or after marriage and childbirth. Their purpose is to provide information about wages, hours, protection, transport and care, not establish bureaucratic family approval for employment. The legal decision belongs to the adult woman, but understanding social decision networks allows realistic service design rather than ignoring them.

18. Effects of Participation on Families and the Economy

Women's income adds more than “a second salary” to households. In an economy exposed to oil, price, illness and unemployment shocks, diversified income reduces the risk of an entire household falling when one person loses a job. It also increases families' ability to finance children's education, health, housing and savings, provided work itself is stable and transport and care do not consume its pay.

Economy-wide, higher employment increases the numbers of producers, contribution payers and consumers with income, and expands the skills pool available to firms. It may also increase competition for talent and encourage better human resources management. These effects do not appear, however, if women enter unproductive oil-funded government jobs or low-productivity activities without demand; participation must accompany value growth.

The World Bank estimate of a possible approximately 31% rise in output per person if women's participation approached the income-group average illustrates potential scale, but is not a “guaranteed return” from raising participation. The scenario needs jobs, capital, education and infrastructure. The Vision therefore uses it to assess the problem's importance rather than as a financial promise. ¹¹

Participation's effect on household time must also be measured. If women's paid work increases while all care and domestic tasks remain their responsibility, empowerment becomes a “second shift” that may harm health and retention. Success means greater income and production alongside redistribution of time and services, not another burden.

19. Employers as Part of the Solution

Employers cannot change all of society, but have five direct instruments: how they advertise jobs, select candidates, organise time, protect workers and promote them. These small decisions determine whether women consider a job feasible.

A “participation-supportive workplace standard” can initially be voluntary, with some elements later connected to government contracts or specified incentives after verification, but it must not become a cosmetic certificate. Institutions are assessed using actual data: female employee turnover, promotion, complaints, hours, insurance and implemented policies.

20. The State: Connected Services Rather than Scattered Campaigns

Iraq does not need a new ministry to employ women. Responsibilities already sit with the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Ministry of Planning, National Directorate for Iraqi Women, Supreme Council for Women's Affairs, transport, trade, banks, governorates and employers. Beneficiaries need one connected service rather than movement between separate files.

Specific options are integrated into the national employment platform and service: verified jobs, nearby licensed childcare, transport routes, insurance enrolment, labour complaints, training and financial accounts. All services need not be in one application from the start; what matters is data exchange, clear referrals, and case managers knowing where and when to refer women.

Governorates use a “travel time to work” map rather than project counts alone: where do women seeking work live, where are firms and childcare facilities, how long is the journey, and where do complaints recur? This geography turns the problem from a slogan into transport, service and training design.

21. The Existing National Framework: Building on Strategies Rather than Replacing Them

The government approved the National Strategy for Iraqi Women 2023–2030, within which ministries implement their plans. The Ministry of Labour and the ILO also launched the National Strategy to Prevent and Reduce Inequalities in the World of Work 2024–2028. In September 2026, the Decent Work Programme 2026–2029 appeared, prioritising inclusive employment, skills, the private sector, rights and protection. ¹²¹³¹⁴

Vision 2045 does not propose writing a fourth strategy now. The first task is a “commitment matrix” collecting every existing measure: entity, budget, indicator, year and implementation status. Duplicates are merged, ownerless actions receive owners, and actions lacking indicators receive them. After 2030, the next phase is built from evaluation rather than a blank page.

During 2025–2026, the Ministry of Planning continued meetings and plans for economic empowerment, from programmes for displaced and returning women and entrepreneurship to discussions on increasing women's business presence. These are useful testing grounds; the Vision asks whether they progress from workshops and initiatives to permanent services measured by work, income and retention. ¹⁶¹⁷

22. Data, Measurement and Accountability

The most serious mistake is managing women's employment through one participation figure. A pathway is needed to explain where capability is lost: education → willingness → search → interview → offer → acceptance → starting work → retention after 6/12 months → promotion and income. Every drop-off has a different cause.

The 2026 Labour Force Survey is a decisive opportunity. Within statistical and privacy standards, it should allow participation, employment, unemployment and NEET to be disaggregated by age, education, family status, number of children, governorate, rural/urban location, disability, sector and formal/informal status. Results integrate with social insurance, employment and training registers without turning data into individual surveillance. ¹⁵

A “Women and Productive Capacity” dashboard is annual rather than monthly for most indicators, because slow-moving numbers do not need daily noise. Administrative indicators such as complaint processing or insurance registration times can be published quarterly. Indicator definitions, denominators and coverage accompany every figure, preventing apparent improvement through changing definitions.

23. International Comparisons: Transfer the Mechanism, Not the Country

23.1 Saudi Arabia: Removing restrictions while creating demand and practical support

Between 2017 and 2023, women's participation in Saudi Arabia rose rapidly, exceeding 35% in the latest national figures. The World Bank attributes the shift to a package rather than one measure: legal reform, expanded available jobs, transport, childcare, flexibility, skills and changing norms alongside private-sector demand growth. The “Wusool” transport programme illustrates how a small barrier in the journey to work can be addressed through a specific instrument. Iraq's lesson is not to copy the rate or programmes, but to coordinate law, services and demand rather than launch separate initiatives. ¹⁸

23.2 Quebec/Canada: Childcare raises participation, but quality and cost are decisive

Quebec's low-cost childcare experience was associated with a large increase in participation among mothers of young children relative to the rest of Canada, and studies showed positive long-term fiscal effects. It also showed that care quality must not be sacrificed to rapid expansion. Iraq's lesson: do not merely build childcare places; build quality, licensing, staffing and safety, expanding gradually where demand exists. ¹⁹

23.3 Mashreq studies: Care is necessary, but not a single switch

A World Bank model for Iraq estimated that expanding good, affordable childcare could increase participation by approximately half a percentage point in a specified scenario. The effect is smaller than in some Mashreq countries because other constraints—jobs, norms and mobility—remain. This is an important result: childcare is necessary but insufficient, and effective policy addresses multiple constraints. ⁴

24. Women and Productive Capacity in Iraq in 2045

In 2045, women's participation will be an ordinary economic decision rather than an exceptional policy file. Graduates will see real jobs and be able to reach them; mothers will not have to choose between children and careers because basic care is absent; firms will not see maternity as a cost they alone bear; and rural women will be able to turn production into income, records, insurance and markets.

The private sector will account for the largest share of growth in women's employment, through industry, services, the digital economy, care, finance, transport, energy and food chains rather than subsidised low-wage jobs. Women can enter technical or managerial jobs, establish firms or work flexibly, moving between these options like men according to skills and choice.

The state will not ask each year “how many empowerment workshops?” It will know participation, employment, unemployment, NEET, income, formality, childcare, transitions and promotion by governorate. When an indicator declines, it will know which link failed. Women's participation thereby becomes part of economic management rather than a ceremonial appendix.

25. Stages of Transformation, 2027–2045

Progression between stages is conditional on outcomes. Childcare subsidies do not expand before supply quality is demonstrated; hiring incentives do not expand before proving they created additional jobs rather than subsidising jobs that would already exist; and finance campaigns do not continue if enterprises remain small without markets or continuity.

26. Indicator and Target Dashboard

27. The Implementation Programme Package

Each programme begins with a limited pilot where causality is uncertain, then compares outcomes with similar areas or groups before expansion. Support does not continue because a programme is popular, but because it demonstrates participation, employment, retention and income, or reduces clear constraints.

28. Implementation, Cost and Financing Matrix

The chapter does not provide an aggregate numerical national cost because childcare places, transport routes, beneficiary numbers and private-sector growth lack a consistent implementation baseline. Detailed financing is developed programme by programme within a medium-term expenditure framework, with permanent expenditure charged only against permanent resources under the rule in Part Four.

29. Risks and Safeguards

The most important conceptual safeguard is that this chapter must not become competition between men and women over a fixed “share” of jobs. A productive economy can expand opportunities, while sound policies improving transport, childcare, insurance and flexibility also benefit families and men. The goal is greater overall human capital utilisation while removing additional barriers facing women.

30. Conclusion and the Bridge to Health and Human Capital

Women and Productive Capacity is not a chapter about “empowering a group” outside the economy; it concerns an economy using only a small share of its human resources. Iraq's figures—female economic activity of 13.1% in 2024, participation of 10.6% in the 2021 survey and 8% in rural areas—mean productivity growth cannot rely on training men or creating jobs alone. Opportunities must also become accessible and sustainable for women.

The Vision's pathway is clear: a real job → feasible transport and time → available care → law and enforcement → a contract and insurance → income and an account → training and promotion → broader economic decision-making. A broken link can leave an entire “empowerment” programme without employment outcomes. When the chain is complete, women's entry into the market becomes an ordinary outcome rather than an exception requiring permanent campaigning.

The capacity to work is not determined by the market alone. Physical and mental health, primary care, prevention, nutrition, safe pregnancy and birth, chronic disease, disability and quality of life determine the human capital available in the first place. The next chapter, V2-D05-C05, “Health and Human Capital”, therefore takes up the question: how can Iraq turn health from treatment after illness into productive capacity and longer, better lives supporting everything this part has built so far?