Understanding employment status, unemployment and its causes could provide suitable data for student admission, graduation, continuation or discontinuation, work experience, and employment. In cases where student admission and quality of training programs are not harmonized with social needs, there will be an increase in unemployment and waste of money and resources. This study is aimed at identifying the causes of unemployment among the midwives of Qazvin Medical Sciences University

Materials & Methods: In this descriptive study, all the midwives admitted to Qazvin midwifery and nursing college during 1996-2006 were studied between 2008 -2009. Their addresses were taken from the college archives and the questionnaires were mailed to all the available samples.

Results: The average age of the cases was 25.27 years old.56.7% of them had studied in day classes and 43.3% in night classes 34% were employed, 35.5% were unemployed, 18.7% were students and 11.8% were practicing the job. The duration of unemployment after education was 2 years or less in 66% cases, but 4.3 % cases were 7 years or more. The main causes of unemployment were market saturation, higher education and employment in unsuitable and remote places.

Conclusion: These findings and the other cases reveal that if practicing midwives are ignored, unemployment rate rises. Paving the way for midwives to work in the hospitals, maternity hospitals and health care centers as well as obtaining permit for them to have private offices could provide more job opportunities for the midwives.