Woman in Development and Politics
Year:2013 | Volume:11 | Issue:1|Papers Count:8

This study aimsto investigate an aspect of marital interactions, distance. By applying a qualitative method and conducting 43 in-depth semi-structured interviews, including 22 women and 21 men, women and men experiences of distance were investigated based on their own narratives.The results of the study suggested different forms of distance in couples' relationships, which can be classified to distance made by choice, distance made by conflict, and distance made by position (situation). Although some forms of distance can cause dissociation in couple's relationship, distances made by choice and some other types of distance can lead to strength in the relationship. It is notable that because of the limited sample size of this study, its results cannot be generalized at all.

Working women compared with non-working women in Iran bear a double burden of responsibility. They not only have to bear the traditional unpaid responsibilities of taking care of children and household chores they also have to bear the responsibilities of performing duties associated with their paid job outside the home. The double burden of responsibility for the working women refers to the amount of work they do at home and outside the home compared with non-working women. This article aims to quantify the additional work the Iranian employed women do based on the number of their dependent children under the age of 7 years. To do this, a comparison between the time allocated for paid and unpaid works by, respectively, working and non-working married women is made. The required data for the analysis was provided by the Iranian National Center for Statistics. The results indicated that married working women with 0, 1 and 2 children work 3 hours and 6 minutes, 1 hour and 42 minutes and 1 hour and 29 minutes, respectively, more than their non-working counterparts. The results also indicate that with an increase in the number dependent children the relative intensity of double burden of working women decreases.

Like many developed and developing societies, Iran has experienced sharp fertility decline and reached below- replacement level fertility. As women have a major role in childbearing, their empowerment and autonomy will lead to changes in their fertility behavior, and many studies have focused on various aspects of women's autonomy and fertility. This paper examines the relationship between women’s autonomy and fertility behavior in the Sirjan city. The data is drawn from the 2011 survey that collected information from around 400 women of reproductive ages (15-49) in the Sirjan city in southeastern part of Iran. The results showed that the relationship between women’s autonomy and fertility is insignificant when other social and economic indicators (i.e. social participation, education and employment) are controlled. The results of the logistic regression analysis indicated that among all different variables, social participation of women and their education level are the strong determinants of dependent variable; as childbearing intention reduces with the rise in these two variables. Women’s age and children ever born are the other two important variables affecting childbearing intentions. Given the results of this study, population policies in Iran in order to facilitate childbearing for couples should provide opportunities in which women could be able to continue their education, have their social participation as well as promoting childbearing.

The impact of gender gap on voting behavior generally is categorized into the traditional gap, convergence and Revisionist patterns. This paper, Firstly By using survey research method and data were collected from 230 eligible male and female voters in Isfahan, makes clear that the first pattern or the traditional gender gap is dominated in this electorate, which denotes that women are more conservative than men. Secondly, it suggests that the effect of traditional gender gap on the population of women is not homogeneous and factors such as the level of education and age of women reduce or increase the level of their conservatism. Thirdly, by showing a relation between gender gap and subordinate behavior explains a relation between women’s conservatism and their subordinate behavior. Then makes clear that the factors reduce women’s conservatism and women's subordinate behavior are the same. Ultimately, the key idea underlying this paper is that the impact of gender or the gender gap on the electoral behavior of women do not simply biologically or predetermined, but somewhat this behavior is multi-layer and is constructed in the context of community and by the non-gender factors. In the latter instance, the construction of women's political behavior shows the extent to which attention to the mechanism for political empowerment of women is necessary.

Introduction/literature review/objectives: one of the influencing factors in entrepreneurship is entrepreneurs'' motivations. Some studies have shown that men and women become entrepreneurs with different motivations. However, entrepreneurs'' motivations in the industry sector, especially considering the sex factor, have been less studied. This study aims to identify similarities and differences in women and men entrepreneurs'' motivations usinga mix method research in a sample of entrepreneurs in the industry sector at the Golestan province Methodology: this is a mix method of qualitative exploratory research in order to identify entrepreneurs'' motivations. Data was gathered by deep interviews with 20 entrepreneurs. Then, a quantitative descriptive study was undertaken in order to compare and prioritize women and men entrepreneurs'' motivations based on data gatheredthrougha predefined questionnaire. Results/discussion/analysis: the results of the qualitative study showed that entrepreneurs'' motivations in the industry sector are earning money, creating jobs, opportunity exploitation, helping the society, proving competencies, internal satisfaction, and independence. The results also showed that there is a significant difference between women and men entrepreneurs for two motivations of «proving competencies» and «earning money». Conclusion: These results help policy makers to further focus on the development of women's entrepreneurship in Iran.

With the arrival of modernity in Iran the society norms have change dandtraditional patterns, especially family pattern, has been under various changes simultaneously. For instance, the average age of marriage for girls has increased over the past decades. This paper aims to determine and analyze factors affecting the gap in women’s behavior and attitudes on the appropriate age of marriage for girls in the city of Koohdasht. Residents of this region ethnically and culturally belong to Lor and Lak ethnic groups. Lack of any knowledge on marriage patterns of women of these ethnic groups would necessitate this study. Data is taken from a survey conducted on a sample of 395 once-married women living in ordinary households at the city of Koohdasht in April 2013. A combination of sampling techniques including multistage clustering and systematic random sampling were employed. Results indicated gaps in women’s behavior and their attitude on the appropriate age of marriage. The 63 percent of participants proposed a mean age of marriage for girls completely different to the age of their own marriage. The gaps are mostly in a negative direction. More than 80 percent of women took part in the test proposed a higher age for girls’ marriage compared to their own age of marriage. According to this study, socio-economic status of women, post materialist attitudes to marriage, women’s autonomy and age at the time of the study hadthe most impact on the rate of the gap between women’s behavior and attitudes on the appropriate age of marriage. The results also reflected the fact that the combination of socio-economic, demographic characteristics and ethnic-cultural factors could provide a better explanation for the gap in women’s behavior and attitude on the age of marriage.

Political participation can be considered as one of the indices in social and political development in different countries. Women, who are commonly included in a society, can have essential roles to control a community and its political, social and cultural developments as well. Therefore investigating women's political behavior is especially important to political and dynamical stabilities. The objective of the present paper has been to study the relation between political culture and female students'' political deportments in Isfahan. The method used to collect and analyze data is geodesic. The research was done by participating 384 Isfahani female students. The results showed a significant relationship among political culture dimensions (such as cognitive biases; emotional and evaluation biases), political behavior dimensions (voting and political activities during election) and non-election political activities (communicate with authorities, complaining and being a member in political groups).

This research is related to power conception and aims to investigate factors affecting women’s decision-making power in families. To do this, the Resources theory has been relied on in this research. Based on the Resources theory, occupation, education, income, job status and property are the factors related to women’s decision-making power in families. In this investigation, data was collected through the survey method and questionnaire method. The samples were 350 jobless and an employed married woman in Babol which was taken by the multi-stage cluster sampling. The results showed that women’s power is generally high in families and some variables such as job, education and assetare the factors increasing women’s power. However, there is no relationship between income and job status and women’s power in families.