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Iran
The Lower Class
Members of the urban lower class can be distinguished by their
high illiteracy rate, performance of manual labor, and generally
marginal existence. The lower class is divided into two groups:
those with regular employment and those without. Those who have
regular work include domestic servants, bath attendants, porters,
street cleaners, peddlers, street vendors, gardeners, office cleaners,
laundry workers, and bakery workers. Thousands work only occasionally
or seasonally at these or other jobs. Among the marginally employed
there is much reliance on begging. In the past, some members of
this group also resorted to prostitution, gambling, smuggling,
and drug selling. Since the Revolution, there have been severe
penalties for persons convicted of moral offenses, although newspaper
reports of the uncovering of various crime rings would indicate
that the new codes have not eliminated such activities (see The
Role of Minorities in Internal Security , ch. 5).
At the time of the Revolution, it was estimated that as much
as one- third of the population of Tehran and one-quarter of the
population of other large cities consisted of persons living on
the margins of urban society. Life was typified by squalid slums,
poverty, malnutrition, lack of health and educational facilities,
and crime. In 1987 there was no evidence of measures undertaken
by the new government to alleviate conditions in the urban slums.
Data as of December 1987
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