Women, work, and ideology in post-revolutionary Iran

The paper is a quantitative and qualitative analysis of Islamic ideology and female employment in Iran today. The Islamic regime's ideology regarding women's roles (as well as the inconsistencies within it) are examined and contrasted with women's employment patterns. Also, today's employment patterns are compared with those before the Revolution. The paper shows that much of the initial rhetoric discouraging female employment and attempting to impose an ideology of domesticity has not been successful. Although labor participation rates have declined for women, they have declined even more for men. The female share of the urban labor force has not altered, however, and government employment for women is actually higher today than it was before the Revolution. The paper identifies a discrepancy between ideological prescriptions and economic imperatives.