A Qualitative Study of Women's Sense of Social and Economic Insecurity before and After a Sham Divorce

Subject Areas : Iranian Sociological Review

Zahra Zare ^{1 *} , Soroush Fathi ² , Narges Asgarkhani ³

1 - Islamic Azad University, Tehran East Branch
2 - دانشیار جامعه شناسی دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی واحد تهران غرب
3 - Department of Sociology, Faculty of Humanities, Islamic Azad University, West Tehran Branch

Received: 2025-02-18 Accepted : 2025-04-24 Published : 2025-07-25

Keywords: sham divorce, social insecurity, economic insecurity,

Abstract :

The emerging phenomenon of sham divorce is a kind of consensual divorce, the purpose of which is not to separate the couple. Rather, it is filed for other reasons, such as receiving the benefits of being single or divorced. Although it has been an increasing phenomenon in recent years, evidence suggests that most of these divorces are filed for the purpose of receiving the pension of the deceased parents. Therefore, this research aimed to qualitatively study women's sense of social and economic insecurity before and after a sham divorce. A number of 14 women who had filed a sham divorce to receive their deceased parents' pensions were interviewed using the grounded theory method. The sampling method was purposive sampling until theoretical saturation was reached, and Nvivo software was used to analyze the data. The findings of this study indicated the presence of economic and family problems before a sham divorce and family problems and insecurity after a sham divorce for women.

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