Can We Reconciille Women's Housekeepiing wiith Outsiide Work?

There is certainly a role conflict between women’s employment, as a human resource, and their housekeeping tasks. The latter has been women’s traditional role for centuries in Iran. Investigation into the nature of this conflict is a matter of important discussion. Through the Revolution and the Reforms, the rights of women have been reiterated by the media as well by the women’s associations. This paper attempts at showing how far women have succeeded in satisfactory reconciliation of the conflict between their job and their home requirements. Women’s share in the labor market is very small, viz., less than 10 percent of their active population. Our data analysis indicates that a majority of 60% of women who work outside the family think that there exists a contradiction between working and housekeeping, and that they prefer to maintain their traditional role, the housekeeping. This finding, among others, is a factor to be considered as an obstacle to the extension of women’s work in Iran.