Everyone Agrees, Until It Is Specific

The Enigma and Paradox of Equality in Iranian Society

Iran grapples with one of the most complex paradoxes in the Middle East and the world regarding human development and gender human capital indicators. Since the mid-2000s, Iranian women have comprised over 50 percent of the country's university admissions. Yet, according to estimates by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report, the economic participation rate of women in Iran has remained at around 14 percent, which is less than a third of the global average.

The World Economic Forum's 2023 Global Gender Gap Report ranks Iran 175th out of 177 countries on the overall index, among the lowest globally for economic participation. This gap between educational attainment and real-world inclusion is the puzzle the Beporsim survey tried to measure: to what extent are the barriers to equality legal and structural, and to what extent do they live in people's everyday beliefs and experiences?

This deep divide between educational empowerment and structural presence in the labor market and decision-making spheres raises a fundamental question: To what extent are the primary barriers to equality rooted in legal and structural frameworks, and how much do they stem from the underlying layers of beliefs, attitudes, and the lived experiences of the society itself?

The historical survey by the Payam Foundation, based on data collected on the Beporsim platform (between July 2017 and November 2019), provides a precise, quantified picture of societal attitudinal patterns prior to recent social transformations. The data demonstrate that although abstract and verbal support for the "principle of gender equality" is extremely high and seemingly universal at the societal level (91.1%), public consensus experiences a sharp decline and deep intra-group divides when questions shift toward concrete legal instances, social responsibilities, and the sources that reproduce discrimination.

Two indexes, one question: what are we actually measuring?

To move societal analysis away from guesswork and translate it into tangible data, instead of relying on single-dimensional questions, two "composite indexes" were designed to measure respondents' attitudes across two distinct dimensions:

1. Gender Equality Index (Score: 68.0 out of 100):

This index evaluates the extent to which an individual agrees with equal rights for women in law, management, the judiciary, and social responsibilities. A score of 68.0 indicates that, broadly speaking, the society leans toward egalitarianism, but this support is not absolute or one hundred percent.

2. Discrimination Awareness Index (Score: 64.3 out of 100):

This index measures how much an individual perceives or believes in the existence of structural discrimination and injustice within society, the workplace, and daily life.

An important analytical point lies in the correlation between these two indexes ($r = 0.345$). This figure indicates that "desiring equality" does not necessarily mean "having a correct understanding of existing discrimination." There are many who favor the slogan of equality but ignore or deny the existence of injustice in their immediate surroundings.

The drop: from abstract support to concrete disagreement

The most significant finding of this survey can be summarized as the "step-by-step decline in support" as we move from general concepts toward practical situations. In response to general questions, society shows a high inclination for equality, but when specific responsibilities and roles are introduced, it retreats:

The Equity Index ladder makes the pattern visible at a glance: support stays near-universal for the abstract principle, then falls away in stages until it drops below a majority on the last item.

This 38.4-point decline demonstrates that consensus on the principle of equality in Iranian society is often abstract and weakens as soon as social costs or responsibilities become tangible. This drop summarizes the central finding of the report into a single picture: People do not reject equality as a slogan. They disagree on what equality requires when a specific role or duty is named.

Where men and women differ: experience shapes opinion

Data analysis proves that gender is the most decisive factor in the divergence of people's perspectives (with a 15.7-point gap in the equality index). Age, education level, or even place of residence do not play as significant a role in how equality is viewed as "being a man or a woman" does.

The cause of this difference must be sought in the heterogeneous lived experiences of the two sexes:

• Experience of Harassment and Annoyance: 48.7% of women reported personally experiencing gender-based harassment, whereas this figure for men was 16.2%.
• Unawareness of Discrimination: 31.2% of men (about one-third) stated that they have had no negative gender-related experiences throughout their entire lives, while this ratio for women is only 7.6%.

This precise difference in experience leads to deep attitudinal divides: In the case of street harassment, 58.0% of men blame the targeted individual themselves (the woman's clothing or behavior); meanwhile, 64.1% of women hold the harasser completely responsible (a 22.1-point gap).

People name culture as the barrier, but choose awareness as the fix

In the section on public culture, the stereotype that "a woman should cook and keep house" was the most frequently heard statement in society at 73.3%. An analysis of stereotype patterns shows that statements constructed about women are primarily "prescriptive and obligatory" (what they must or must not do), while male stereotypes are more descriptive.

When respondents were asked about the main barriers to equality, 74.7% identified "societal culture" and 50.2% named "laws" as the primary culprits. However, in an obvious paradox, when it came to providing solutions, 79.0% of individuals chose the broad and indirect option of "increasing awareness" over structural solutions or changing laws. More practical solutions, such as "teaching equality in schools" (55.0%) or "protesting and standing up against discrimination" (45.0%), were placed as lower priorities.

An Invitation to Read the Full Survey Report

The findings of this research suggest that the path to achieving gender equality in Iran does not pass solely through legal reforms; rather, it requires a profound re-evaluation of everyday beliefs, moving beyond prescriptive stereotypes, and fostering social responsibility against discriminatory behaviors.

What you have read in this article was a narrative summary of the key indexes and findings of the research. For a more complete and precise understanding of the data, we invite you to read the comprehensive version of the "Survey Report on Measuring Gender Attitudes in Iran."

In the full version of the report, you can access the following:

• A disaggregated analysis of the country's 31 provinces and the geography of gender beliefs.
• A detailed table of methodology, the statistical weighting method, and standard error calculations.
• A cross-examination of age and educational variables, and the stability of data over time.
• Charts and tables of raw and balanced data.

The full text of the report, along with province-by-province results, methodology, and limitations, is available for download. The Payam Foundation has published this report under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.