Choice and Constraint in paid work: Women from low-income households in Tehranстатья из журнала
Аннотация: ABSTRACTBased on interviews and participant observation conducted in 2009–10 in Tehran among women living in low-income communities, this contribution examines the complex ways in which women experience paid work. Most low-income Iranian women interviewed had conflicted views about paid employment. Some held up the male breadwinner as ideal, occasionally invoking Islam to limit their engagement in work they viewed as socially stigmatizing, physically difficult, or low paying. Others, particularly younger and unmarried women, had more positive views of work. Class, age, type of employment, and marital status all played roles in shaping women's experiences; but among women with similar characteristics, considerable differences were also apparent. Building off previous work that rejects simplistic dualisms such as choice versus constraint or exploitation versus empowerment, this contribution argues for more nuanced categories that allow for an emphasis on the conflicted ways women experience paid work.KEYWORDS: Classnormsinformal sectoragencyfamily wagedevelopmentJEL Codes: B54J01D1 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORSRoksana Bahramitash is a graduate of the McGill University Sociology Department and is the author of numerous books and articles, including Liberation from Liberalization: Gender and Globalization in Southeast Asia, Veiled Employment: Islamism and the Political Economy of Women's Employment in Iran, and Gender and Entrepreneurship in Iran: Microenterprise and the Informal Sector.Jennifer C. Olmsted is Professor of Economics at Drew University in Madison, NJ. She has written extensively on gender, economics, and the Middle East. Her publications have appeared in various journals, including World Development, Industrial Relations, Journal of Development Studies, Feminist Economics, Women's Studies International Forum, and Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, as well as numerous book volumes.ACKNOWLEDGMENTSWe are grateful for the feedback received during the special issue workshop, as well as from anonymous reviewers, Caitlin Killian, and guest editors Ebru Kongar and Elora Shehabuddin. Special thanks also go to former Drew University student and research assistant Michele Schuler and to Fresheh F. Farahani, our wonderful research assistant in Iran. All personal information that would allow the identification of any person or persons described in the article has been removed.Notes1 Interestingly, Naila Kabeer and Ayesha Khan (Citation2014: 12, 13) find that some poor urban Afghan women who fled to Iran and then returned stated that "life was better in Iran," where "society … respected and delivered on women's rights."2 In June 2013, Iranians elected Hassan Rouhani to replace Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.3 It should also be noted that in the case of Iran, the ILO uses econometric techniques to derive their estimates, since they argue that official figures underestimate women's employment and therefore need to be adjusted upward.4 Before the revolution, women who wore hijab were banned from certain positions, such as taking an administrative role in the education system.5 Note also that this research builds off a previous survey on women's employment carried out in the city of Tehran, which was a randomized sample that made use of a map of the city of Tehran obtained from the Mayor's office to identify poor neighborhoods (Roksana Bahramitash and Shahla Kazemipour Citation2011).6 Note that although technically she was only working 32 hours a week, because of her long commute, her effective work scheduled spanned 48 hours in the space of just four days and this calculation does not include time spent on unpaid work.7 As indicated also by Fauzia Ahmed (Citation2014), assuring that analysis of gender relations, family ties, and religion is contextualized and that local beliefs (and legal frames) are fully understood is of key importance. In Iran, the term kharghi is the colloquial word used for the concept of nafagheh – the Islamic notion of the financial entitlement owed to the wife by the husband, which should allow her to live in the manner to which she is accustomed, and which in Iran is included as part of Iranian civil law. See Arzoo Osanloo (Citation2009) for discussion of nafagheh in the context of Iran, and Roksana Bahramitash (Citation2002) for discussion in the context of Indonesia.8 An entire analysis could be done of the ingenious marketing techniques employed by these women, but that will have to be the topic of a future study.9 An Iranian academic interviewed in the spring of 2011 stated that Zahra Sadat Moshiri, the wife of Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who was then Mayor of Tehran, had in fact pleaded with officials not to harass Metro vendors because they were mainly single mothers who needed the work to make ends meet, although our fieldwork suggests that many are also young single women without children. Leaving aside the question of the age and marital status of the vendors, the fact that the wife of a public official had openly addressed this issue and raised concerns about official policies surrounding street vendors suggests the degree to which social awareness of the hardships faced by these workers and the negative impact of government enforcement of laws are part of public discourse in Iran.10 The notion that women's views of employment might vary depending on where they are in their life cycle is closely linked to the degree to which they may be expected to provide reproductive labor. On average, young women, who are more likely to be single, as well as older women who are done raising their families, may have fewer reproductive responsibilities.11 As this contribution was being finalized, a breakthrough was also made in that regard, with the media reporting that Iran had agreed to limit their nuclear program; this may lead to a reversal of the earlier decision to tighten sanctions.12 Other authors have also explored how women frame their employment experiences in the context of their spiritual beliefs. See for example Damla Isik (Citation2013).
Год издания: 2014
Авторы: Roksana Bahramitash, Jennifer C. Olmsted
Издательство: Taylor & Francis
Источник: Feminist Economics
Ключевые слова: Islamic Studies and History, Political Economy and Marxism, Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics
Открытый доступ: closed
Том: 20
Выпуск: 4
Страницы: 260–280