The Effect of the “Woman Life Freedom†Protests on Life Satisfaction in Iran: Evidence from Survey Data

Mohammad Reza Farzanegan () and Sven Fischer
Additional contact information
Sven Fischer: School of Business and Economics, Philipps-Universität Marburg

MAGKS Papers on Economics from Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung)

Abstract: This study examines the effect of the “Woman, Life, Freedom†protests in Iran during the last quarter of 2022 on individual life satisfaction. To assess this impact, we use two original representative surveys conducted before and after the protests in 2022. The repeated cross-sectional dataset was generated using the same sampling approach in both surveys to ensure representativeness. Our results, based on probit regressions and an instrumental variable approach for a sample of 2,256 individuals, show that the violent protest environment had a significant negative effect on life satisfaction in Iran. To measure respondents' exposure to the protests, this study uses various indicators based on the distance of individual respondents from the protest locations. Overall, the protest environment decreased the probability of life satisfaction by 3.6 percentage points. These results remain robust when controlling for other determinants of individual life satisfaction. Moreover, we find significant heterogeneity among respondents based on gender, with the largest negative impact of the protests on life satisfaction observed among women. This negative effect is more pronounced than the impact of unemployment. Another key finding is the heterogeneous effect depending on media consumption, with international TV viewers reporting the largest decrease in life satisfaction. The mechanism underlying these effects was further explored through mediation analysis, which reveals that feelings of insecurity and increased surveillance are key mediators of the total effect.

Keywords: Protest; Violence, Life Satisfaction, Well-Being, Woman Life Freedom, Survey, Iran. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 F52 H56 I31 N15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2025
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ara, nep-hap and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.uni-marburg.de/en/fb02/research-groups ... -2025-farzanegan.pdf First version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mar:magkse:202501

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MAGKS Papers on Economics from Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Bernd Hayo ().