In Iran, Women Entrepreneurs in Male-Dominated Industries Face Steeper Barriers

Women entrepreneurs in Iran who run businesses in male-dominated industries encounter a set of legal, religious, and cultural obstacles that their counterparts in female-dominated industries largely do not, according to a qualitative study published in Heliyon. The research, based on in-depth interviews with 15 women entrepreneurs in Tehran, found that while both groups face gender-based discrimination, glass ceilings in business networks, and work-life conflicts, women in sectors such as mining, manufacturing, construction, and trade reported additional barriers rooted in Iranian law, Islamic norms, and the culturally specific concept of gheyrat, a notion of male honor tied to female modesty.

The study was conducted by Fatemeh Safaripaskiaby and Kyoko Kusakabe, who applied institutional theory to analyze how formal regulations, social norms, and shared cultural beliefs shape women’s entrepreneurial experiences differently across industry types. Institutional theory examines three pillars: regulative structures such as laws and policies, normative expectations about appropriate gender roles, and cultural-cognitive beliefs that are taken for granted in society. The researchers combined this framework with a critical feminist perspective to capture how women actively negotiate and reinterpret these constraints rather than simply being shaped by them.

Participants were drawn from the Iranian Women Entrepreneurs Association, a non-governmental professional organization based in Tehran with 92 registered members at the time of recruitment. The researchers classified 50 of these businesses as operating in female-dominated industries, including education, health, social services, and home-based activities, and 42 as operating in male-dominated industries such as mining, manufacturing, energy, construction, transport, and finance. They defined female-dominated industries as those where women constitute 50 percent or more of the workforce, a threshold chosen because women’s overall labor force participation in Iran is low, with national statistics showing only 17.0 percent of women participating in the labor market compared with 71.1 percent of men. Through direct contact and snowball sampling, the team recruited eight women entrepreneurs from male-dominated industries and seven from female-dominated industries, all with at least five years of entrepreneurial experience.

Data collection took place between May and June 2019 through in-person, semi-structured interviews conducted in Farsi, most lasting between 60 and 90 minutes. The interviews were audio-recorded with participants’ informed consent, transcribed verbatim in Persian, and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis, an interpretive approach based on inductive coding. Quotations were translated into English by the first author, a native Persian speaker, and checked against the original transcripts. Six male entrepreneurs and five key informants with academic, policy, or regulatory expertise were also interviewed, bringing the total to 26 interviews, but these supplementary accounts were used only for contextual and triangulating purposes, not in the primary comparison.

The analysis identified three challenges common to women entrepreneurs in both industry types. First, respondents described gender-based discrimination, including stereotypes that women lack business competence and commitment. One participant in education-related consulting recounted being rejected by multiple landlords who doubted a woman’s business would survive, while another in mining equipment trade said men do not share power or leadership positions with women because they do not see them as equals. Second, women in both groups reported a glass ceiling in business network leadership, noting that men hold most leadership positions in business associations even in female-dominated sectors where women entrepreneurs are numerous. Third, all respondents described full domestic and childcare expectations that restricted their time and mobility for networking, with motherhood expectations constraining attendance at seminars, fairs, and evening events considered crucial for building business connections.

Beyond these shared challenges, the study documented four barriers reported only by women in male-dominated industries. The first was legal and policy discrimination. One manufacturer reported that the business registration form at the time contained a gender-specific condition requiring a female applicant to be married or include a male business partner. The researchers note that Iranian legal provisions, including Civil Code Article 1117, which allows a husband to prevent his wife from working in a profession deemed incompatible with family interests, and Labor Code Article 75, which bars female workers from hazardous or arduous work, do not impose a blanket ban on women owning businesses in male-dominated sectors. Nevertheless, the study finds that formal legal capacity does not ensure practical autonomy, as family law, licensing procedures, and gendered administrative practices constrain women’s independent operation. Several respondents listed husbands or fathers as formal business partners to satisfy requirements or facilitate financial guarantees while managing the businesses themselves.

The study reports that government support programs for women entrepreneurs are geared toward female-dominated industries, making loans easier to obtain for women in those sectors. Women in male-dominated industries, which tend to be more capital-intensive and require larger loans, described difficulty securing credit despite sound finances. One participant in mining products trade said bank executives, mostly men, did not trust her as a woman and that she eventually obtained her loan through her husband’s company.

Cultural and religious discrimination formed the third MI-specific barrier. Women in these sectors described constant scrutiny of their interactions with male clients and colleagues, navigating between professional visibility and reputational risk tied to modesty expectations. Some brought their sons to business gatherings to avoid being labeled immodest, and others reported receiving important business information later than male entrepreneurs. The study highlights gheyrat, an Iran-specific cultural-religious concept linking male honor to female modesty, as a mechanism through which family members, particularly husbands and fathers, restricted women’s mobility and public presence. One respondent’s husband and father forbade her from visiting work sites where male workers gathered, advising her to manage the business from the office. Another participant said her ex-husband opposed her interactions with male colleagues as a threat to family honor, a conflict that contributed to their divorce. Women in male-dominated industries also reported needing prolonged negotiations to obtain and maintain husbands’ permission to work, while those in female-dominated industries faced no such difficulty.

The fourth barrier involved legitimacy and peer relations. Respondents in male-dominated industries said they had to adopt assertive, aggressive behaviors to be taken seriously, and some hid pregnancies to avoid being judged unfit for business. One participant described losing a tender offer after male entrepreneurs, who did not know each other, collectively questioned whether a company with a female CEO could meet its financial obligations. The study also documented queen bee syndrome, in which women entrepreneurs in male-dominated sectors failed to collaborate with one another, viewed each other as competitors, and preferred partnering with men to validate their businesses. Additionally, women in these industries reported criticism from mothers and female friends for choosing work seen as incompatible with motherhood and gender norms, and some refused family help to prove they could manage alone, resulting in exhaustion and work-life conflict.

The authors frame these findings within a multi-level institutional analysis, showing how macro-level laws and religious frameworks, meso-level industry networks and cultures, and micro-level family dynamics jointly produce divergent experiences across industries. They argue that the household itself functions as an institutional arena where legitimacy is negotiated and enforced, a dimension they say has been overlooked in previous institutional analyses. The study’s policy implications call for distinct approaches: leadership and network access reforms for female-dominated industries, and structural changes addressing spousal permission rules, discretionary enforcement, and discriminatory lending for male-dominated sectors, alongside mentoring programs and women-led coalitions. The researchers caution that their findings are limited by the single Tehran-based sampling frame, which may not reflect experiences in other provinces or rural areas, the exclusive focus on women without a male comparison group, and the reliance on self-reported experiences, and they note the context-specific nature of the results limits generalizability to other cultural or religious settings.

Subject of Research: Qualitative comparison of challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in male-dominated versus female-dominated industries in Iran

Article Title: A comparative analysis of women entrepreneurs’ challenges in Male- and Female-dominated Industries: Evidence from Iran

Article References: Safaripaskiaby, F., & Kusakabe, K. (2026). A comparative analysis of women entrepreneurs’ challenges in Male- and Female-dominated Industries: Evidence from Iran. Heliyon, 12(16), Article e45630. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2026.e45630

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2026.e45630

Keywords: women entrepreneurs, Iran, male-dominated industries, female-dominated industries, institutional theory, gheyrat, gender discrimination, Islamic values, qualitative interviews, business networks, glass ceiling, work-life balance