Analysis of the effects of women's employment on their life quality Case study: Iranian Female Employees in the Ministry of Agriculture

Women's tendency toward higher education has led to increasing demand for professional jobs. Thus women's employment is an undeniable reality of Iranian society in the upcoming years. Evidently, this process will have great effects on different social levels. Although, the consequences of women's employment have been studied by some researchers, there are few studies concerning impacts of employment on women's quality of life.This article examines the effects of employment on the “quality of life” among female employees by addressing the two following questions:- Does the employment including objective aspects of job, have any effect on women's quality of life? - Does the subjective aspect of job including job satisfaction have any effect on women’s quality of life? For this purpose 234 women working in the Minister of Agriculture were selected through proportionate stratified sampling and were interviewed accordingly.Among different objective aspects of job including years of working, type of employment, income, job position, job flexibility and homogeneity it was found that only “job flexibility” and “homogeneity between job and skills” had significant correlation with the quality of life. In fact the respondents holding a higher quality job enjoy a higher quality of life.Also, the findings showed that the mean of the total index of the respondent's quality of life equaled 1.9 out of a range of 1-3. There was also a significant relationship between job satisfaction and quality of life. The total index of “job satisfaction” explained 29% of the variance of the quality of life of employed women. In spite of some negative viewpoints regarding women's employment, the findings indicate that a positive job position and satisfaction improves women's life condition.Among contextual variables, “marital status” had a significant relationship with the quality of life, namely, the quality of life among married employees was lower than single ones.Finally, it can be concluded that empowerment of employed women is a necessity process through which they could make a better balance between family and job roles and improve their quality of life.