Gender and Entrepreneurship in Iran

Microenterprise and the Informal Sector

R. Bahramitash

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137339232
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Emprendimiento

Iran is estimated to have the third largest informal sector in the MENA region a major source of income for many low-income households whose numbers are growing as sanctions tighten. Gender and Entrepreneurship in Iran provides insight into the role of informal networks in employment creation in Iran from a gender perspective. Drawing upon theories of social capital, social network, and the postcolonial feminist critique of mainstream development, this analysis sheds light on the ways in which poverty and unemployment may be tackled.

Chapter 1

The Other Women and the Other Economy

The introductory chapter ended with a discussion on the importance of the concept of Other/subaltern women—women of low-income households. In this chapter, I will introduce the concept of social capital (social networks) before discussing the major theme of the book. The aim is to create a space within which to view the critique of the discourses around mainstream development, gender, and development/gender and the informal sector in ways other than portraying women as victims. There are two main questions: How can women of low-income households exercise agency? And how can the Other women operate through the Other economy (as an alternative to the market-led formal economy) in ways that can contest social and economic power structures, rather than reproducing and reinforcing them?

Here I wish to share with my readers a point about the reason for placing this chapter before the main focus of the book: It is in part my attempt to create a dialogue between my training as an academic with preformulated ideas and my findings in the field. I started this project first by reading the relevant literature. However, once the fieldwork was completed, I realized that more ideas were essential in order to contextualize the focus of the book. This chapter came together after the data gathering and data processing was completed.

In some ways, it became imperative at the final stage of writing the book to incorporate a discussion of such concepts as social network and social capital, some reflection on social economy, and some analysis of informal and microfinance to provide a framework for discussion of micro-entrepreneurship and the informal sector. Microfinance in particular proved to be an important part of the findings due to its prevalence among women throughout many parts of Iran. Moreover, microfinance becomes an important concept when social economy, also known as the third sector, is reviewed. The social economy/third sector is an interesting economic space, because it is in neither the hands of the state nor those of the private sector, and it has potential for social transformation (or some degree of personal or at least economic empowerment and access to resources) as it is not necessarily geared to pure profit-making and market-led growth.

Social Capital and Social Network

One of the ways the Other women can earn access to economic resources and become part of the social economy is through their social networks. This became evident as the research uncovered layer after layer of how individual women found survival strategies both personally as well as through/for their community. The latter is highly related to their role as part of social safety nets, on which I have conducted further research (Bahramitash forthcoming).

Social capital as a political notion has been articulated in the work of Robert Putnam (1993) as a way of creating civic engagement through social networks. It enhances social values both individually and collectively (when collectively it is a building block of democracy). Alejandro Portes defines social capital as “the capacity of individuals to command scarce resources by virtue of their membership in networks or broader social structures” (1998, p. 12). Michael Woolcock defines social capital in broader terms as “the norms and networks facilitating collective action for mutual benefit” (Woolcock 1998, p. 155).

According to the World Bank, “social capital is the institutions, the relationships, the attitudes and values that govern interactions among people and contribute to economic and social development.”(Grootaert and van Bastelaer 2001, p. 18) In effect, social capital through social networks facilitates individual or collective actions and enhances relationships, reciprocity, and trust. The latter is an important component of microcredit (Grootaert and van Bastelaer 2001), something that will be discussed in more detail later in this chapter and is vital to the Other/shadow/informal economy. Elsewhere the World Bank argues that social capital is the glue that holds society together. It has been treated as the missing link of development, yet critics argue that the way it has been used in development literature is as a stopgap to replace the state and thus facilitate neoliberal economic policies and globalization (Schuurman 2003).

Although the idea of social capital can be seen in the works of Durkheim, Weber, and Marx in the field of economic sociology, during recent times it has been elaborated in two different schools: the mainstream and conservative, and its critique.1 The mainstream has been endorsed by free market advocates and conservatives who see it as based on a long tradition of volunteer organizations, such as churches, clubs, and private business organizations, all of which act as a buffer between the state and individuals (Fukuyama 1995). The significance of social capital for development is cultural, and its significance for economic development is in the form of voluntary groups/organizations that attempt to fill the gap that is left behind when a state becomes minimalist; in a neoliberal state, civil society is expected to deal with the human cost of market adjustments and failures.

A different approach is taken up in the work of Alejandro Portes and Julia Sensenbrenner, who view social capital as “those expectations for action within a collectively that affect the economic goals and goal-seeking behaviour of its members, even if these expectations are not oriented toward the economic sphere” (Portes and Sensenbrenner 1993). They emphasize the noneconomic aspect of social capital, which can be traced back to the work of Marx and Engles and their notion of “bounded solidarity.” This is nearly synonymous with Simmel’s “reciprocity transactionism”—that is, the norms and obligations that emerge through personalized networks of exchange, or simply favors between neighbors (Woolcock 1998).

Some academics have been critical of social capital at the level of the state and the market. For instance, in the work of Bourdieu, in agreement with that of Coleman, social capital and social networks are viewed as producers or reproducers of inequality. In an elaborate discussion, Bourdieu argues that capital is the expression of social forces present in the habitus of social actors.2 The habitus is the internalization of objective social and material conditions available in an individual’s daily reality, and thus within the habitus, the individual manipulates and uses capital that enables the actor to carry out actions in the social world, although the relationship between objective structural conditions, the habitus, and action is not one that is deterministic in nature. However, the habitus does predispose individual actors to a general understanding of the immediate social universe and hence creates only a circumscribed range of actions within this social universe. That is, social capital can reinforce existing social inequalities—for example, male-female inequalities or age inequalities within a community of low-income women (Bourdieu 1977).

Bourdieu distinguishes three forms of capital: economic capital, cultural capital, and social capital (1986).3 Habitus encompasses the predisposition and transmission of embodied cultural capital. When contrasted to other forms of capital, social capital is not entirely contained or possessed by the actor. Instead, social capital is embedded in the network of relations among actors. Social relationships that are part of ethnicity, family, friendship, and other façades of networks become an important source of nonphysical capital to people. The forms and nature of the networks in which people are situated determines the total amount of social capital available to them. It allows actions and reward-seeking activities to occur. Its existence is unrelated to individual perceptions, interpretations, or even usage. Social capital has been widely used to examine community dynamics (Putnam 1993, 1995) and opportunities (Portes 1998; Portes and Sensenbrenner 1993; and Sanders, Nee, and Sernau 2002). Bourdieu argues that economic capital facilitates the accumulation of cultural and social capital, but at the same time, lack of one form of capital can translate into lack of access to other forms (1977, 1986).

Bourdieu emphasizes the role of trust based on informal networks in countries where there are insufficient formal institutions and there are no agents to safeguard rights and honor contracts. Trust in informal networks (i.e., social capital), according to such authors as A. Fox (1974) and Edwards and Foley (1998), is a second-best alternative where there is an absence of rule of law and there are no safeguards against those who fail to fulfill their social contract (Schuurman 2003, p. 1003). Grootaert et al. emphasize the importance of trust when social norms are failing. On the positive side, however, social capital in the world of public policy emanates from the basis of gemeinschaft, a type of society where there are mutual bonds among its members and a feeling of togetherness, and it is rooted in communitarian ways of dealing with the rupture that modernity has brought; as an institution, it can facilitate transformation. Here I wish to extend the analysis of social capital to women of low-income households who have to face the challenge of being women and survive economic hardship in a society that revolves around men; these challenges will be explored when the results of my fieldwork are presented.

On the critical side, some argue that social capital can reinforce existing norms and values, and the type of communitarianism discussed here can be used against women’s rights. This I found to be true among women of low-income households who endorse a strict code of religious interpretation (Bahramitash and Olmsted 2012a, b) and are against the personal and autonomous women’s rights celebrated in the modernist literature. Incidentally, it should be clear that the tone of much of this book is within the modernist/modernization frame as well, though one can argue that community and communal lives are also important, especially when it comes to women of low-income households. Nonetheless, we need to be aware that there is an undertone implicit in reproducing modernist views of women’s rights that emphasize personal autonomy/freedom over and above that of the community. This complicates the results, as we shall see, because sometimes the Other women prefer communal and sometime traditional values over their personal autonomy/freedom, thus making it difficult to make categorical statements about the findings and implications of research.

To make it even more complex, Portes and Sensenbrenner argue that since social capital works on the basis of social inclusion, it also can mean social exclusion, which can recreate inequality; males in groups versus women, more affluent women versus those of low income, older women versus younger women. Some of this inequality comes through in the chapter wherein my fieldwork is discussed. Here women complain about the shame they feel, that working in low-paid and low-status jobs is the source of this negative feeling, and that clearly social networking is a liability rather than an asset. But as we shall see, some women are extremely happy having their own income, and it gives them bargaining power at home.

At the level of public policy, there have been critiques of the use of social capital in neoliberal economic policies, which as mentioned earlier call for a minimalist state—that is, a state withdrawing from the provision of public services. In the debate over development, feminists have criticized neoliberalism due to its assumption that by reducing social services the need for those services will disappear. Their academic research has documented how the reduction of the welfare state and its transformation into a workfare state has increased women’s unpaid labor. For example, reductions of social services, especially under the banner of structural adjustment policies as part of debt repayment, and cutbacks in health care and education have been absorbed by women’s reproductive roles. These developments have been documented, and there is a vast literature on the topic (Benería 1992; Sparr 1994; and Tsikata and Kerr 2001).

Some academics have argued against the minimalist state and neoliberalism from a developmental state perspective. They argue that, far from reducing the role of state, to achieve economic development and promote social welfare requires a more active role for the state. From a public policy point of view, they argue that the state must be engaged with civil society, but as a representative entity responsive and responsible to civil society. Amsden, Wade, and Evans advocate that state-led development, as opposed to market-led development, at the macro level can utilize social capital in a way that works in synergy with the civil society and uses social capital as a means to alleviate poverty (Amsden 1985; Wade 1990; Evans 1995), and the work of Portes argues similarly at the micro level (Portes 1998).

Woolcock argues, with respect to development initiatives in poor societies, “where there are so many obstacles to forging mutually beneficial complementarities between the state and society,” that social capital is important (1998, p. 158). In a synergy between the state and civil society and in the work of state-led development advocates, Rankin argues that when the state is highly cooperative, accountable, and flexible, social capital can be used successfully and for the advancement of the country (Rankin 2002, p. 5).

In addition, social capital in the form of social networks and associational activities is effective in dealing with poverty and social disintegration and delivering effective social welfare (Molyneux 2002, p. 185). As we will see in the fieldwork, some women find employment through their network of friends and extended family. Schuurman (2003) discusses the concept of community social capital and argues that it is constructed and maintained especially by women who have shifted their frame of reference from the family and the neighborhood toward career perspectives. Molyneux produces vast documentation on the ways in which women have been mobilized for poverty-relief and community-development programs: “The evidence shows across a range of countries that women among low-income groups are frequently those with the strongest community and kin ties; many such women do network, they do engage in reciprocal supportive relations, they are those who support church activities and participate in local forms of associational life. They are to be found too, at the heart of voluntary self-help schemes whether in health, education or neighbourhood food and housing programmes” (2002, p. 177). These concepts will be explored further when I discuss fieldwork from Iran concerning ways in which volunteer work and self-help groups are formed (especially in the form of rotating credit and saving associations).

Much like Molyneux, this book emphasizes the importance of social capital and its potential to enrich the development debate from a policy point of view. Research on networks, community ties, and kinship are important ways in which to address poverty. This is especially important, because in formulating development projects, the local social fabric and the importance of social solidarity and cooperation (negative or positive) are vital. When formulating projects, it is important to take note of such existing reposes (Molyneux 2002). Unfortunately there is not a great deal of debate at the level of public policy. Although the World Bank heavily endorses social capital, there is no reference to it in Engendering Development (Mason and King 2001). Molyneux mentions that social capital in the name of participation has been articulated in participatory development, and it has had a long history in the Catholic Church and the Left in the context of Latin America. Social capital, or networks in the forms of associational activity, has been operationalized in the form of bottom-up development, particularly when it is decentralized. There will be forthcoming documentation on the role of women of low-income households through Islamic charitable efforts in the context of Iran (Bahramitash forthcoming).

For Catholic mothers, taking care of the community is part of their role as good Christians, and self-help relies on low-paid or unpaid women’s labor as part of their care for the community. Women help and provide in times of economic crisis, just as was the case in Peru during the 1980s and 1990s, and this is evidence of social capital at work, because if they were not providing such care, there would be social crisis as well (Pearson 1997). In Iran, all women’s religious rituals, such as Qur’anic reading groups and mourning for Shi’a Saint Imam Hussein during the month of Muharam, bring women of low-income households together. These occasions go hand in hand with networking, where information about the needs of particular members of their community can be exchanged and assistance in cash and kind is delivered (Bahramitash and Olmsted 2012a, b).

Generally, there exists a tendency to overlook female-run networks, and this is the case with the literature on the Middle East and North Africa, especially from a policy perspective. However, social capital among men in the Middle East and North Africa has long been researched. For instance, the work of R. Cunningham reveals that the traditional market or souq provides a location for exchange and distribution of goods and services with political implications and influence (Cunningham 1992). In the context of Iran, Arang Keshavarzian has documented how the bazaar and social networks within it played a key role in the mobilization of political forces against the shah during 1978. He writes that the “Tehran Bazaar maintained its cooperative hierarchies which created a sense of community” (2007, p. 127). Relevant to Keshavarzian’s work is the concept of etebar—honor as guarantee for credit (2007, p. 83). Where women are concerned, Diane Singerman examines informal networks and the family network and how they tend to be absent from debates on poverty and women’s rights (2006, p. 2). In part this is because the family is in the private sphere, where power is believed to be absent. Singerman argues that “there is a rupture between innovative theory and empirical research when the focus turns toward the Middle East. Instead, family, tribe and informal networks are dismissed as pre-political forms (Zubida, 1998), vestiges of traditional societies or primordial attachments that will wither away with modernity” (2006, p. 7). It is true that family can reinforce hierarchy and domination (Bayat 1994), but equally it can be a source through which women empower themselves. As Schuurman and Singerman emphasize, the family network and civil society, and the potential within them for resistance, can be catalysts of emancipation. Katherine Rankin argues that in feminist literature a much more complex analysis of resistance has been developed than what is found in the work of Bourdieu’s typology of “Doxa,” “Habitus,” and “Political consciousness” (2002). In fact, some academics have argued that women in the Middle East and Asia lean toward male-dominant ideology in a strategic way to secure their lives and that of their children.4

Singerman argues that informal networks operate to transcend bureaucracies, religious institutions, civil society organizations, the market, the extended family, and the neighborhood in order to fulfill individual and collective needs. Such networks are pervasive, flexible, and efficient (2006, p. 17). She argues that informal networks in Egypt create a wider public sphere and bring power to the private as a “buffer” between citizens and the state. This reiterates a theme that developmentalist state theorists have articulated but also leads us to a different sphere—that of the third sector—which I will discuss later in this chapter after reviewing the notion of microcredit. This next section will examine microcredit as a way of operationalizing social capital in development planning.

Microe...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Spring 2008
• Chapter 1: The Other Women and the Other Economy
• Chapter 2: Gender, Micro-Entrepreneurship, and the Informal Economy
• Chapter 3: Entering the Formal Sector
• Chapter 4: Low-Income Female Workers, Micro-Entrepreneurs, and the Informal Sector
• Chapter 5: Comparing the Male and Female Samples
• Conclusion: Fighting Poverty and Unemployment, Social Economy, Unionization, and Social Entrepreneurship
• Appendix
• Notes
• References