Women's Labour in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Losers and Survivors

This article examines the changes in the female class structure of the urban work force in post-revolutionary Iran by investigating the rate and pattern of the exclusion and the incorporation of women in the market between 1976 and 2006. We examine the gender marginalization thesis and test it empirically by focusing on the class nature of women's exclusion and incorporation into the labour force. We rely on decennial census data and present our empirical finding in the context of the social hierarchy of work. Moreover, we provide a comparative empirical analysis of the economic marginalization process for urban women's and men's class locations historically.