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Work-Family Balance and the Well-Being of Educated Women in Iran

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Handbook on Well-Being of Working Women

Part of the book series: International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life ((IHQL))

Abstract

In developing countries, the issue of balancing work and family and its effect on women’s well-being has not yet been explored to the same extent as it has been in developed countries. This chapter focuses on the experiences of educated women in Iran in combining employment and childcare. Overall, this study demonstrates the severe tensions that exist between caring and working for women in Iran. It shows the strong gendered values around caring that inform both mothers’ and policy-makers’ approaches to work-family balance and women’s well-being and highlights, moreover, that female citizens in Iran are neither only workers nor only carers: they are both at the same time, as well as being wives. National childcare policies in the welfare regime of Iran specifically, and the Middle East generally, should provide more social facilities and introduce both formal and informal care arrangements, which would improve the level of women’s and children’s well-being.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This is the author’s translation.

  2. 2.

    Data used for this analysis taken from my 2010 PhD thesis.

  3. 3.

    All quotes from Mehdizadeh (2010), author’s translation.

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Acknowledgment 

I would like to acknowledge the useful comments given to me by Professor Simon Duncan of the Center for Applied Social Research of Bradford University, for which I am grateful. In addition, I would like to thank the two editors of this book for their helpful comments. My thanks also go to the British Academy, of which I was a Fellow during the time of writing this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow, Adam Smith Building, Bute Gardens Glasgow, G12 8RT, Glasgow, UK

    Narjes Mehdizadeh

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  1. Narjes Mehdizadeh
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Correspondence to Narjes Mehdizadeh .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management College of Business Administration, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa, USA

    Mary L. Connerley

  2. Department of Management and Marketing School of Management, Rhode Island College, Providence, Rhode Island, USA

    Jiyun Wu

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Mehdizadeh, N. (2016). Work-Family Balance and the Well-Being of Educated Women in Iran. In: Connerley, M., Wu, J. (eds) Handbook on Well-Being of Working Women. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9897-6_39

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9897-6_39

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-017-9896-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-9897-6

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