Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference on Intellectual Capital

Marziye Ehrami et al.
Note: In 2005 statistics, indexes for unemployment rate, combination <strong>of</strong> active population, rate <strong>of</strong>
economic activity, literacy and life expectancy were all predicted by Iranian Economy Monthly
Magazine, Research Unit. In <strong>the</strong> statistic released in 2009, indexes for literacy rate and life
expectancy were predicted by Iranian Economic Monthly Magazine, Research Unit. Source: Research
Unit <strong>of</strong> IRANIAN Economy Monthly Magazine, from <strong>the</strong> report <strong>of</strong> women Employment <strong>of</strong>fice, Ministry
<strong>of</strong> labor and social Affairs, 2005
3.1 Definition <strong>of</strong> women's empowerment
Conceptually, empowerment does not mean superiority <strong>of</strong> one over ano<strong>the</strong>r (women over men).
Instead, it emphasizes on upgrading self-confidence and self-reliance <strong>of</strong> one. It also means
continuous and active presence <strong>of</strong> women in development programs but not utilizing <strong>the</strong> development
results.
According to <strong>the</strong> United Nation’s Guidelines on Women's Empowerment, women's empowerment
contains <strong>the</strong> following five components:
Sense <strong>of</strong> self-worth
Right <strong>of</strong> ownership and decision-making
Right to have access to opportunities and resources
Right to have control over one's own life, both inside and outside home
Ability to influence <strong>the</strong> direction <strong>of</strong> social change in order to create a fair social and economic
system, nationally and internationally.
According to this definition, women should be seen as active citizens, also called as control
citizenship (<strong>the</strong> highest level and kind <strong>of</strong> participation will be considered) which means decision
making and participation in <strong>the</strong> social affairs and family life. Welfare, access, knowledge, and control
are o<strong>the</strong>r important factors in <strong>the</strong> process <strong>of</strong> empowerment; yet <strong>the</strong> main discussions are on what
factors affect women's empowerment. This study tries to assess <strong>the</strong> rate <strong>of</strong> utilization <strong>of</strong> women’s
capabilities, using individual's empowerment indicators, in selected organizations .The end, a
questionnaire with 32 questions was prepared and distributed among women in <strong>the</strong> selected
organizations after its validity and reliability was verified. In addition, in order to avoid unilateral
judgments, ano<strong>the</strong>r questionnaire, containing 11 questions was developed and distributed among
male employees in which <strong>the</strong>y were asked to tell <strong>the</strong>ir views about women’s empowerment as well as
women’s work. The total sample included 412 women and 210 men and <strong>the</strong> results are illustrated in
figures 1 and 2.
Figure 1: Analysis men's questionnaire
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