The International Labour Organization (ILO) released a report on Tuesday revealing that only 5.1% of workers in Afghanistan are women, five years after the Taliban's return to power. This figure is less than a third of the proportion recorded in 2019 and 2020.
The report highlights that Afghanistan now has the second lowest female labor force participation rate worldwide, against a backdrop of severe restrictions on women's access to education and employment. The ILO calls for urgent measures to counter women's "severe exclusion," emphasizing that this is essential to bolster the Afghan economy's resilience.
The Taliban rapidly regained power in August 2021 amid the withdrawal of US and other NATO forces, ending a 20-year period during which women enjoyed comparatively improved economic and educational freedoms after years of hardline Islamist rule.
The UN agency warns of "significant demographic and institutional changes" in the labor market since 2021, many of which disadvantage women. "Afghanistan cannot build a resilient labor market while such a large share of its population remains excluded from economic activity," said Tite Habiyakare, senior coordinator and head of the ILO office for Afghanistan.
The report states that Afghanistan's labor market remains "under considerable pressure" five years after the Taliban takeover, having only moderately recovered from the crash of 2021. The country's GDP tumbled by around 15% when the Taliban returned amid the COVID pandemic and western troops and funds flowed out, remaining deeply negative in 2022 and barely clawing into positive growth since, far short of pre-Taliban levels.
Employment numbers have started to rise in absolute terms, but not fast enough to keep pace with population growth — either domestic or due to emigrant returns — meaning the share of people in work is flatlining at just under one-third of the population.
The paper also calls for increased investment in representative labor force data-gathering, warning that its data relies on modeling estimates "subject to considerable uncertainty and should be interpreted with appropriate caution."
Large-scale returns of emigrants, particularly from Iran and Pakistan, have become "one of the defining labor market challenges facing Afghanistan," the report says. More than 6 million Afghans returned from Iran and Pakistan between 2023 and the end of May this year, driven by "a combination of policy, economic and security factors."
The report notes World Bank projections suggesting this could drastically halve the influence of remittance inflows into the Afghan economy, from around 4% of GDP in 2020 to around 2% by 2025. Since February 2026, the Middle East crisis has added further uncertainty for Afghans residing in Iran, alongside continued implementation of returns policies.
Finally, the ILO warns that the war in Iran poses additional risks for Afghanistan — in terms of general inflation, food and fuel prices, trade and transport disruptions, and increased potential returns from Iran. Around 70% of workers, particularly less skilled ones, are at least moderately exposed to crisis-related factors like energy prices, with roughly 30% facing only slight exposure.
The report notes a steep rise in inflation over the past 12 months, from less than 1% in May 2025 to around 8% by May 2026, warning that such increases "disproportionately affect poorer households and reduce real earnings, particularly among informal workers."
Source: www.dw.com