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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
Rapid developments of the twentieth century have forced attention upon the changing status and role of women in all societies. As they have acquired a longer life expectancy, are having healthier children, and with the advancing technology, mass production and distribution contributing to their lessening housekeeping chores, women have acquired more and more leisure time.
While the industrialized societies have been mostly concerned with the problem of leisure time for these women, and making optimum use of all human resources, both male and female, the developing countries have been facing the basic problem of illiteracy, and particularly illiteracy of their female population. There has always been a small segment of the female population in developing countries with as much, if not more, leisure time than those of the industrialized nations.
An earlier version of this article was presented at the “Tenth International Seminar on Family Research,” sponsored by the International Sociological Association and the Institute for Social Studies and Research, Tehran, March 5-12, 1968.
1. Sanghvi, Ramesh German, Clifford and Missen, David eds., Liberation of Women (London: Transorient, 1967), pp. 9 and 11Google Scholar; also Wilbur, Donald Iran, Past and Present (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 178.Google Scholar
2. Ibid., p. 12.
3. National and Province Statistics of the First Census of Iran, November, 1956, Social and Economic Characteristics of the Inhabitants for Iran and the Census Provinces, Vol. II (Tehran, 1962)Google Scholar, Table 22; also Census District Statistics of the First National Census of Iran, November 1956, Vols. 1, 3, 4, 6, 7 (Tehran), Table 11.Google Scholar
4. Literacy and Employment and Occupational Status of Urban and Rural Iran are based upon figures of the 1956 Census and the 1966 One Percent Sample. The 1966 figures for literacy have been adjusted to the 1956 criteria of ten years plus by subtracting the age group seven to nine.
5. National Census of Population and Housing, November, 1966, Vols. X, XXIII, XLIII, XXXIV, and LXXI (Tehran).Google Scholar
