Women in the work and poverty trap in Iran

Abstract

This paper argues that where, as in Iran, the perceived needs to subjugate women has been firmly articulated with the prevalent belief system, it becomes more difficult to find practical strategies for liberation through employment of women and their participation in the processes of production. Where women are defined as ‘dependent’, encouraged to marry early into polygamous marriages, and where they are systematically excluded from the work place and the formal labour market, then female poverty can ultimately become integrated and institutionalised. In a country which is not prepared to finance a national welfare system or protect the poor, women are forcibly squeezed towards the outer margins of the economy and obliged to eke out a living on the borders of legitimacy. Unavoidably many now populate the prisons and some even find that their families are better off living off the pensions paid to their dependents.