Gender Distribution in Iran’s Translation Industry:
Who Gets the Largest Piece of the Pie?
Abstract
Translation is seen around the world as a female-dominated industry. However, translators are not paid equally and one’s salary as a translator depends on various factors, including experience, university degree, language proficiency, and translation skills. The most lucrative sector of the translation industry in Iran is official translation, which requires a license from the Judiciary. To obtain a license to establish an official translation bureau or work as a sworn translator, one must pass highly competitive standardized exams that assess their language proficiency, translation skills, and knowledge of the law. This study attempts to shed some light on the gender distribution of translators working in the most profitable sector of the industry. The results of this study show that 72.6% of certified translators in Iran are men and only 27.4% are women. Nevertheless, there are some provinces where women outnumber men as sworn translators. For instance, 75% of certified translators in Zanjan are female and only 25% are male.
Keywords:
Certified Translators, Gender Distribution, Pay Gap, Translation Industry, Female TranslatorsReferences
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Copyright (c) 2023 Mohammad Aghai
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Copyright Licensee: Iranian Journal of Translation Studies. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0 license).
