Investigating women's employment policies in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Academic thesis in the master's degree in social sciences

Abstract:

Among the important issues in the field of women and family, the status and place of women's employment and the political, legal and program measures designed for it, in order to realize the desired state of the policy-making system. Surely, the content and how the policy system deals with this issue is one of the influential factors in determining the situation and a favorable position for it. Therefore, the current research aims to investigate the policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the field of women's employment and describe the current situation. In this regard, using qualitative content analysis, the text of all the policies and laws approved in the main policy-making and law-making institutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran was examined by counting and explaining the categories and topics of interest in these policies and laws, as well as the approaches governing them. Social policy with the macro-axis of incentive-promotional policies, which includes two categories of "proportionate employment of women" and "unrestricted employment of women" and the macro-axis of support policies, including two smaller axes of "support for working women" and "support for unemployed women", which has paid attention to the issue of women's employment in the form of multiple welfare approaches of Islam, social democracy, feminism, socialism, and liberalism. However, many of the general policies lack support in the current laws to be operationalized and therefore remain as mere slogans. Keywords: employment policy, women's employment, labor market, social policy, women's welfare. Introduction: Removing the obstacles and problems of the system and achieving a favorable position is one of the goals of every political system. Therefore, measuring efficiency is considered as one of the important topics for evaluating any political system. Efficiency is a category that is measured by taking into account the degree of achievement of goals and reducing the distance between the existing conditions and the ideal conditions of the society. The system of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was established with regard to Islamic teachings and paying attention to the role and position of the people, as well as the development of justice, elimination of deprivation and oppression in the society; It has paid special attention to women's issues and as seen in the statements of the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Imam Khomeini (RA) and the Supreme Leader, understanding the value and human status of women and striving to improve the quality of life of women in the society has been one of the most important duties of the Islamic State. In this way, the Islamic system is free from extreme (modernist) and excessive (petrifying) viewpoints, it is obliged to moderate and pay attention to the human dignity and character of women in the society. From this point of view, women have the same political, social and cultural rights as men and the innate and natural differences between men and women that cause them to play different roles and tasks; It will not deprive them of enjoying human rights shared with men.

    This research aims to investigate the policymaking of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the field of women's employment and describe the current state of policymaking in this field; Because it is necessary to realize the lofty ideals of the Islamic Revolution in the field of women and family, where women's employment is an effective and influential part on other aspects of this field; It cannot be achieved except by describing the current situation and designing a way out and transition from the current situation to the desired ideal point. Therefore, in this research, by using the qualitative content analysis of the text of policies and laws approved in the main decision-making and policy-making institutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the current situation of women's employment policies in this country has been described. are the main policy-making and legislative bodies in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and on the other hand, it has investigated the approaches governing these policies and laws.

Based on this, in the first chapter of the research, the problem statement, the main and partial objectives of this research, and the questions that the researcher will try to answer during this research have been discussed.

Since in order to identify the approaches governing women's employment policies, it is inevitable to know about welfare schools and ideologies in the first step, and in the next step to know about the distribution and effect of these welfare ideologies in welfare systems for the objective and operational realization of those ideologies; Therefore, in the second chapter, the historical course, the main components and the important intellectual foundations of these ideologies and sometimes the type of thinking of the founders of these schools and the approach of each of these schools to the employment of women have been expressed, and finally, the tendency of the welfare systems towards the employment of women has been expressed. In the third chapter, the researcher has first described and explained the types of research methods - quantitative and qualitative - and expressed their differences, and then explained the research method implemented in this research and its steps. The findings of the research to answer the research questions are also concentrated in the fourth chapter. Based on the findings of the research, the final analysis and conclusion of this research and the presentation of suggestions and strategies to overcome the existing situation and achieve the desired situation have been gathered in the fifth chapter of the research. It is hoped that this research, by identifying the gaps and providing strategic suggestions in this area, will provide an effective step to improve the current conditions in this issue for the policy makers. 1-2: Statement of the problem In the last century, in most countries, programs Development is formulated and implemented with appropriate and specific goals. In Iran, this type of planning has several decades of history. Favorable economic growth, improvement of living standards, increase in real per capita income, development of living, welfare and social benefits are all categories that are proposed as goals and products of economic and social development programs of countries. Investigating human and non-human factors related to the process of growth and development is one of the topics that various scientists of humanities and social sciences have addressed. One of those human factors is women and family. In the monotheistic view of Islam, the historical mission of women is considered to mean their presence in changing values, promoting thoughts and improving the general behavior of society, and women's issues are not limited to their legal issues, that too in relation to men; Rather, women should consider themselves an effective element in changing society's values, beliefs and morals. Contrary to other thoughts, from the perspective of Islam, a woman is not only invited to herself and does not only pay attention to her interests; Rather, to the general perfection of the society and the participation that can help in arresting the members of the society and reducing the harms of the society, expanding welfare, social well-being, and even at the level of Islamic countries and above that, the oppressed on earth, and in this way provide the basis for the creation of an advanced society in terms of culture, economy and society, with citizens enjoying social health; has been called that if this important is not realized; The Muslim woman stops from evolutionism and gradually becomes corrupt and challenges the society. In this type of attitude (monotheism), women as the most important element of the social system and the fundamental core of its transformations and the active community-building institution, as well as the key axis of the family institution, play an irreplaceable role in transferring evolutionism to family members and through mediation to society. Women's evolutionism means paying attention to educating a committed, revolutionary, efficient, justice-seeking and evolutionary generation, which has the basic characteristics required for social development (order, discipline, etc.) through playing the irreplaceable and important role of motherhood. This is despite the fact that the family is one of the missing links of social life in the West, which itself has caused deep emotional, behavioral and social crises. So that from the very beginning of women entering the market work, the roles within the family were introduced as obstacles to their progress and employment [1]; Because the development of capitalism required the expansion of cheap and abundant labor, and removing half of the population from the labor market (women) in the 19th century and in a situation where the economy was growing and flourishing, could not benefit capitalism. Following this event, despite the initial idea of ??staying at home [2], the capitalist society followed another path based on economic and social needs. At this stage, the comprehensive phrase "human nature" was the focus of the question, and the expressions of masculinity and femininity were considered to limit women's experiences, and human ability compared to "human nature" was evaluated as more efficient in determining the position of women. Therefore, by expanding the thinking of individual benefit instead of focusing on collective benefit and maximizing material benefit and accompanying women as a broad segment of society, this vision attacks domestic work and mother's role, with the justification that the said process is traditional and acquired. It paved the way for women to enter the labor market (Mashirzadeh, 2015: 25).