The gender gap in labor force participation (LFP) in Iran is much larger than most other countries, but it has been declining. Also, the composition of women’s employment has been shifting towards professional and entrepreneurial positions, especially in the private sector (Salehi Esfahani 2010). Since Iran has similar labor market conditions like other countries in the Middle East and North African region, examining the forces behind the above mentioned patterns will help in coming up with potential specific policies to address the changes in the female labor force participation rate. When we examine the change in the participation rate of the female labor force, we must analyze the main forces that led to that change. We also need to look at whether societal norms and ideologies have anything to do with the changes in the female LPF rates. Iran as a culture is perceived as patriarchal and their traditions are based on their religion. Ever since the Iranian Revolution, Iran has become very uptight when it comes to religion. One of the simplest examples is the enforcement of the hijab on the women and oppressing their freedom.
A study shows that 60 per cent of the increase in female labor force participation rate that happened between 1986 and 2006 is due to the decline in fertility is one of the forces behind the increase of the female labor participation rate (FLPR). This decline in fertility may have happened due to the increase in female education which has led to a notable decrease in the number of babies born. Another factor behind the increase in the female labor participation rate would be the expansion of female education that is accountable for the continuous increase of women’s participation in the labor market.
While ...
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... force market and with the availability of better job opportunities would be an incentive for women to start seriously considering to work. To this day, ideologies and societal norms remain the most influencing factors and major impediments to women.
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...made. “Their domain of activities has extended, if not in the formal market, to the informal sector of the economy and to social affairs. The remarkable indices of these reforms are that urban and rural women volunteers participate in most important political institutions (i.e., parliament and Islamic councils) or in the establishment of NGOs.”21 This is a very large improvement, furthermore, women are gaining access to and “empowerment through higher education”21. Higher education leads to many positives, higher paying jobs, greater social standing, are just some of the advantages that will be accelerated over time as the gender gap becomes less prominent. However, “in Iranian society, men still are perceived to be more important than women”21 though this idea is decreasing at an increasing rate, it illustrates how pervasive and damaging a negative ideology can be.
Gender relations in the work force are of one of the fastest changing areas of social relations. Prior to the industrial revolution, there was little separation between work and home or public and private life. Though this changed during the industrial revolution. Women and men both started to have a significant role in society. Men, Women, and even children worked in factories and mills. People worked in horrible and dangerous working c...
Women’s rights in the Middle East are being restricted, therefore there are many different reactions. Some people were in favor of women having equal rights while there are some who are against women to have the same rights. Since before times, many countries in the Middle East have been taking women for granted and minimized their rights by telling them they can't do something or selling them as if they were prized. When women were treated as prizes it was a practice in Afghanistan called Ba’ad that used women as the compensation, for example a story of a girl named Sakina. She was a consolation prize so that her brother could marry a woman and the Jirga system told her she had to marry a 80 year old guy when she was like 18. This tells me
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The Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979 created a lasting affect on the societal role of women through modern day Iran. Women in Iran before the revolution were not entirely treated equal to men, but despite some cultural perceptions of women being inferior to men, they had made progress to become socially equal under the Shah. Several misconceptions and theories have been published and studied to show the inequality of women versus men because of Islam. However, contrasting theories have also been made to show that inequality has little to do with the religion, but instead with the forceful nature upon which it was implemented in the revolution. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the Islamic and political history of Iran and its social implications over Iranian women.
In addition, a 2002 study showed a negative correlation between state income and gender inequality; a lower level of female education attainment commonly resulted in a lower steady-state income (Knowles). As analyst Ernesto Tzannatos has documented in his 1999 paper, when employment segregation is initiated, there is an extreme loss in efficiency due to inequalities, however, if these setbacks are eliminated, then there would be a significant reduction in wage gaps and an increase in total GDP. Cavalcanti and Tavares (2007) have calculated the “output loss” for a cross-section of a country in which they found that a 50% increase in gender wage-gap results in a significant decrease in income of 25%, also, Klasen and Lamanna (2009) found a negative connection between gender inequalities in the workforce and economic growth as well in 1960-90 (Oriana Bandiera and Ashwini
The Women of the Middle East have played substantial roles for their corresponding countries since the advent of colonialism in the region. Middle Eastern women have worked in all types of fields including medicine, education, agriculture, government, private sector, and even defense. They have kept roofs over their family’s heads while their husbands were away in wars, or even in foreign countries to work in jobs that they could not find in their own countries. The roles of women in the countries of Yemen and Oman are no exception, but while they still find ways to contribute to their country, they care constantly stereotyped, discriminated, and ridiculed by men who are known and unknown to them. This paper will discuss the individual contributions of the women living in Yemen and Oman, and will discuss in further state laws and cultural norms that are affecting the women living in these countries today.
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The institutionalized discrimination of women in the work place is nothing new or unheard of. The brunt of it has happened fairly recently as women began to enter the labor market in force less than a century ago. The affect of this discrimination has had long lasting, generation spanning affects, but as time has passed and feminism spread, the gender-gap has slowly begun to shrink.
Shackleton brought up an important point about the gender wage gap. The statistics about women’s commitment to work attendance alerted the employers and affected their decisions in what is related to hiring females. This gave more opportunity for males to fill out these vacancies. It is worth mentioning that Shackleton indicates, “This led risk-averse employers to operate with stereotype, which might be accurate or inaccurate, of common group characteristics” (par 18).Shackleton’s mind is right. Some employers misled by statistics, and they have a stereotype view on women. Women need to make more efforts to change this reality.
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Assaad R, Et al, “The Effect of Domestic Work on Girls Schooling: Evidence from Egypt”. Feminist Economics. 2010. 16 (1) 79-128. Print.
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It can be concluded that women are treated in terms of stereotyped impressions of being the lowest class and greater evidence can be found that there are large disparities between the women and the men 's class. It can be seen that women are more likely to play casual roles as they are most likely to take seasonal and part time work so that they can work according to their needs. They are hampered from progressing upward into the organizations as they face problems like lack of health insurance, sexual harassments, lower wage rates, gender biases and attitudes of negative behavior. However, this wouldn’t have hampered the participation of the women in the work force and they continue to increase their efforts which is highly evident in the occupational and job ratios of females in the industry.