(Withdrawn) Gender egalitarian attitudes among Iranian women and its socio-cultural determinants

Rasoul Sadeghi, University of Tehran
Aliyar Ahmadi, Shiraz University
Abbas Askari-Nodoushan, University of Yazd, Iran

Gender equity has been one of the main areas of demographic research during recent years. Changing gender attitudes, norms, and values play a prominent role in the explanation of current fertility patterns as well as other aspects of family dynamics. In Iran, gender system has undergone profound changes during recent decades. In particular, egalitarian attitudes and behaviors have further developed in the society. Hence, this study explores gender egalitarian attitudes of 4950 Iranian women (15-49 years old) and also, examines the impact of modernization factors (namely urbanization, modern education and using mass media) as well as ethnic affiliation on gender egalitarian attitudes. The research is based on the secondary analysis of a national representative data -‘The Survey of Socio-economic Characteristics of Iranian Households’- conducted in 2001. A scale on egalitarian attitudes was constructed from respondent's answer to a set of questions on gender roles in the public sphere (including employment, education, and politics), as well as division of household chores or other aspects of family life. The findings demonstrate that most of women have modern attitudes to gender egalitarian, particularly in public sphere although traditional views in specific dimensions of this attitudinal scale are found. Moreover, findings showed that urbanization, modern education and mass media as modernization factors have contributed to the emergence of gender egalitarian attitudes. Finally results are indicative of substantial ethnic differences on gender egalitarian attitudes. As a result ethnicity is an important cultural factor in determining formation of attitudes towards gender equality.