1. See Moghadam, Valentine M., Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1993)Google Scholar, especially ch. 6; idem, ‘“Women, Work, and Ideology in the Islamic Republic,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 20, no. 2 (1988): 221–43.

2. The main sources of data are the 1986 census, the statistical yearbooks, and the 1991 census, all of which are available from the Statistical Center of Iran, Plan and Budget Organization, Islamic Republic of Iran, in Tehran. These official sources are the basis of the labor-force statistics reported in the ILO's Yearbook of Labour Statistics, which has also been consulted for this article. Additional information has been obtained from UNIDO and UNICEF, Tehran. The author also collected data at the Darupakhsh Pharmaceutical Factory in Karaj and the Moghaddam Textile Factory in Qazvin in visits to the enterprises in May 1994. It should be noted that Iran was among the very few countries that did not submit a national report for the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 4–15 September 1995)—which would have been an-additional source of information and a basis for analysis. All countries were expected to prepare reports on implementation of the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies for Women (adopted by consensus at the third global women's conference in 1985) and to provide detailed accounts of women's health, educational, economic, legal, and political situation, including violence against women and the extent of women's participation in decision-making positions.

3. See Fischer, W. B., “Iran,” in The Middle East and North Africa 1990, 36th ed. (London: Europa Publishers, 1989), 416–59Google Scholar, esp. 440.

4. All labor-force data must be examined carefully, as they tend to be problematic in many developing countries, particularly with respect to women's labor-force participation. Women's economic activities have long been undercounted, reflecting a widespread devaluation of women's work, but also contributing to misguided policies. Women's participation in rural and agricultural production, and in the urban informal sector, far exceeds what is depicted in the official statistics. The most reliable labor-force statistics pertain to the formal sector of the economy, that is, waged and salaried employment that falls within the government's taxation purview. But, as this article will show, in Iran women's participation in the formal sector as waged and salaried employees is extremely limited.

5. The figures vary; a labour force of 1.3 million women and 11.5 million men has also been reported. The percentages, however, remain roughly the same.

6. Regarding the under-enumeration of the female rural population, an interview with Ms. Mehrangiz Changeezi, statistician at the Statistical Center of Iran, confirmed my suspicion that there had been a lack of coordination between the ministry of agriculture and the Statistical Center, leading to different definitions of work and different statistics. According to Ms. Changeezi, this situation is being corrected (personal interview, Tehran, 16 May 1994).

7. These countries have been studied within the framework of the author's 1994–95 UNU/WIDER research project on economic restructuring, women's employment, and social policies.

8. Nassehy, Guitty, “Women: A Situation Analysis” (Tehran: UNDP, 1993)Google Scholar.

9. This information is from a table in Nassehy, “Women,” 40, derived from the publication Women Mirrored in Statistics, 207. It should be noted that the numbers of women in medicine are not only low in relation to men, but also when compared with other countries. For example, half the physicians in Vietnam and Cuba are women, and in Cuba 70% of the dentists are women (Moghadam, V. M., Economic Reforms, Women's Employment, and Social Policies: Case Studies of Vietnam, China, Egypt, and Cuba [Helsinki: UNU/WIDER World Development Studies Series, August 1995]Google Scholar).

10. Nassehy, “Women,” 40. The source of Nassehy's information is Sharifi, Firouzeh, “Women in the Iranian Bureaucracy,” Zanān, no. 2 (March 1991): 6–7Google Scholar. According to a recent government publication, a bill was passed in 1992 to guarantee equal payment of new year bonuses for women and men. See Islamic Republic of Iran, Zan va tawse'eh: ahamm-e eqdāmāt-e anjām-shodeh dar khoṣūṣ-e bānovān pas az pīrūzī-ye enqelāb-e Eslāmī (Tehran: Shura-ye Hamahangi-ye Tablighat-e Eslami, 1994).

11. Mirani, S. Kaveh, “Social and Economic Change in the Role of Women, 1956— 1978,” in Nashat, Guity, ed., Women and Revolution in Iran (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1983), 78Google Scholar. Accordingly, in 1976 only 55 percent of urban women, and 30 percent of rural women, were literate.

12. Nassehy, “Women,” 39.

13. See Sālnāmeh-ye āmārī-ye keshvar 1370 (Tehran: Statistical Center of Iran, 1991), 73, Table 3.8.

14. Moghadam, “Women, Work and Ideology,” 233.

15. Nassehy, “Women,” 41.

16. These two factors were offered by Ms. Changeezi in an interview with the author on 16 May 1994.

17. “Women in Industry: Iran Country Report” (Vienna: UNIDO, 1992).

18. For a detailed discussion of the five-year plan, see Ghasimi, M. R., “The Iranian Economy After the Revolution: An Economic Appraisal of the Five-Year Plan,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 24, no. 4 (1992): 599–614CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19. Karshenas, Massoud and Mazarei, Adnan Jr., “Medium-Term Prospects of the Iranian Economy,” Iran and the Arabian Peninsula: Economic Structure and Analysis (London: The Economist Intelligence Unit, 1991)Google Scholar.

20. For an elaboration of these quotas and the Islamic state's education policy, see chapter 6 in Moghadam, Modernizing Women.

21. See interview with Dr. Sadik in Kayhan International, 23 September 1993, 5. The Iranian government and the UNFPA co-sponsored a regional conference on family planning, which took place in Tehran 11–15 September 1993. The region in question was Iran and several Central Asian republics. The Iranian officials who spoke at the meeting—Minister of Health and Medical Education Dr. ‘Ali-Reza Marandi, Vice-President Dr. Hasan Habibi, and Foreign Minister Dr. ‘Ali Akbar Velayati—discussed the need for family planning in terms of the requirements of economic development and balanced economic growth, but Dr. Habibi also mentioned the link between family planning and “effective participation of women in economic, social, and cultural activities.” See Report of the Regional Conference on Family Planning, Tehran, 11— 15 September 1993 (n.p., n.d.).

22. See The Justice System of the Islamic Republic of Iran (New York: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, 1993), 44.

23. See Islamic Republic of Iran, Zan va tawse'eh.

24. Quoted in Moghadam, Modernizing Women, 202.

25. See Islamic Republic of Iran, Zan va tawse'eh, 15.

26. See Moghadam, V. M., “Gender Aspects of Employment and Unemployment in a Global Perspective,” in Simai, M., Moghadam, V. M., and Kuddo, A., eds., Global Employment: An International Investigation into the Future of Work (London: Zed Books, 1995)Google Scholar; see also Shaban, Radwan A., Assaad, Ragui, and al-Qudsi, Sulayman S., “The Challenge of Unemployment in the Arab Region,” International Labour Review 135, no. 1 (1995): 65–81Google Scholar.

27. It is said that protective legislation, including maternity leave and child-care provisions in labor law, raise the cost of female labor and are a disincentive to the recruitment of women workers. I am critical of such market responses to working women and do not agree with those economic theories that justify elimination of social policies facilitating women's productive and reproductive activities. In any event, these policies are firmly in place in many European countries where women form half the labor force. For a discussion of these issues concerning East Central Europe see Moghadam, V. M., ed., Democratic Reform and the Position of Women in Transitional Economies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993)Google Scholar; see also Introduction and chapter on Egypt in idem, Economic Reforms.

28. This information is from Āmārgīrī-ye jārī-ye jam ‘īyat 1370: natāyej-e ‘omūmī, koll-e keshvar (Tehran: Statistical Center of Iran, 1372 Sh./1993), 64, Table 8.

29. From figures kindly shared by Ms. Changeezi.

30. See UNFPA, Tehran, “An Analysis of Population Situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran” (Tehran: UNFPA, 1993), 23.

31. Even before the revolution many of the hair and beauty services for women were carried out informally, partly to avoid payment of taxes. But after the revolution hair salons and beauty shops closed down, as these were regarded by puritans within the ruling group as evidence of Pahlavi-style conspicuous consumption or religiously inappropriate. In the hotels there are barbershops for men, but not hair salons for women—hence the apparent proliferation of home-based hair and beauty services for women in the contemporary Islamic Republic.

32. There is also a need to study the extent of voluntary social-welfare activities tied to the Islamic foundations on the part of religiously observant women. This was drawn to my attention in conversations with Ms. Afsaneh Bakhtiari of the foreign ministry's Office of Women's International Relations. She herself had spent a total of 10 years working voluntarily among the urban poor, prior to her employment with the foreign ministry.

33. This was reported in Kayhan International, 3 February 1994, citing a chart prepared by the United Nations Statistical Division and the Secretariat for the International Year of the Family, 1994. However, it should be noted that the well-documented UN publication The World's Women 1995: Trends and Statistics (New York: United Nations, 1995) does not include a figure on Iran for households headed by women. Clearly, this is an area for further research.

34. Information from Ms. Changeezi. See also Sālnāmeh-ye āmārī-ye keshvar 1370, 79, which shows that out of 1.6 million civil servants, there were 511,818 females.

35. Figures kindly provided by UNIDO.

36. United Nations, The World's Women 1995, 174.

37. Information kindly provided by UNIDO.

38. Figures kindly provided by UNIDO.

39. Observations and interviews at Moghaddam textile factory, Qazvin, Iran, 17 May 1994.

40. The authorities in the Islamic Republic, and the Islamic women in government or quasi-governmental NGOs, are keen to respond to criticisms of compulsory veiling and to show that veiling does not hamper women's public activities, including education, employment, sports, art, music, and voting. In a glossy publication prepared for the Beijing conference, Hijab: Immunity, Not Limitation (Tehran: Center for Mosques’ Affairs, Women Section), color photographs show women in all kinds of activities, including factory work, with the ḥejāb strictly observed.

41. The sample consisted of 300 randomly selected women aged 20–50 living in Tehran, of whom 57 percent were married, 37 percent single, 6 percent divorced or widowed. Half the women had children; 39 percent had been working for over 12 years; 34 percent had worked between 5 and 10 years. The methodology of the study consisted of interviews in conjunction with the administration of a questionnaire (see Nassehy, “Women,” 42). The study, published in 1369 Sh./1990 by the research program of the national broadcasting service, is entitled Research on Rights, Social Role and Clothing of Women and Search in the Development of an Islamic Pattern for Today's Women [sic]. The discussion taken from Nassehy's report is from pp. 313— 40 of the original study. The small size of the sample notwithstanding, the findings are interesting.

42. This is consistent with the actual activity rates of women which, as stated above, fall dramatically during and after the age bracket 30–39.

43. Nassehy adds parenthetically that the reason behind their feeling of insecurity must be sought. It does seem worthwhile to investigate issues around job security/ insecurity for women.

44. Nassehy, “Women,” 43.

45. This is not to endorse the idea of domestic servants, unless they are covered by contracts and social insurance. Ideally, men and other family members should participate equally in housework.

46. Quoted in Zan-e rūz, 30 Mehr 1373, 4. I am grateful to Jalaleddin Jalali for bringing this to my attention.

47. Author's interview with Ms. Shahla Habibi and members of her staff, Tehran, 14 May 1994.

48. From remarks by Ms. Niloufar Pourzand of UNICEF, Tehran. See Gender Analysis Workshop: Proceedings (Tehran: UNICEF, Tehran and Women's Bureau of the President's Office, 1993), 12.

49. From remarks by Engineer Marzieh Sedighi, ibid., 7.

50. See Blumberg, Rae Lesser, Rakowski, Cathy A., Tinker, Irene, and Montéon, Michael, eds., Engendering Wealth and Weil-Being: Empowerment for Global Change (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

51. See UNIDO, “Women in Manufacturing: Participation Patterns, Determinants and Trends” (Vienna: UNIDO, 1993).

52. That a group of women's NGOs has recommended that the government sign and ratify the United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women—and circulated a leaflet to that effect at the FWCW in Beijing— is a positive sign that issues of discrimination may receive more attention.

53. See V. M. Moghadam, “Manufacturing and Women in the Middle East and North Africa: A Case Study of the Textiles and Garments Industry” (University of Durham, Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Occasional Paper #49, June 1995).