Social Policy Analysis of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Field of Empowerment of Women Heads of Households

The simultaneity of women being the head of the family and how to support, manage and develop a plan for their empowerment by policy makers is one of the most important issues in social policy in the field of women heads of the household in the materials of the fourth, fifth and sixth development programs. Although currently, with the completion of the implementation years of the sixth development plan, the plan has not yet been approved by the Islamic Council. This research was formed with the aim of examining the content of social policy in the post-revolutionary period and the executive performance of the system in the management of the empowerment of women heads of households, and the three main objectives are “examination of macro policies”, “examination of executive policies” (with Emphasis on the laws approved by the parliament) and “obstacles to the institutionalization of the empowerment plan for women heads of households” with a qualitative approach. In line with the first two goals, “thematic analysis” and the description and interpretation of the results were done with all the macro policies and laws approved by the Islamic Council.   After that, in order to achieve the third goal, through sampling and interviews with the informants, by adopting “thematic analysis”, the barriers to institutionalization of the plan were addressed. The most important results of this research are: 1. The dominance of the approach of male headship over the family and the Islamic theory on the macro policies of the system in the field of policies related to women heads of the household was proved in the position of guiding policy making at other levels; 2. The difference in the laws related to women heads of households was determined with regard to support institutions and insurance funds, as well as the compliance of approved laws with different policy models in the transformation of these models from supportive policies to supportive policies over time in the management of women heads of households. Empowerment was reviewed; 3. The non-institutionalization of the female head of household empowerment plan was concluded due to the existence of two categories of approach challenges and organizational challenges; 4. Strategies based on improving the process in developing the empowerment plan for women heads of the household were presented. In the end, the pattern of results obtained from the obstacles to the institutionalization of the drawing plan and the main indicators of efficient policy in the management of the field of empowerment of women heads of households were proposed.