Challenges for Rural Women Entrepreneurship Development (The Case Study: Ilam City)

The aim of this study was to identify the challenges of rural women entrepreneurship development in Ilam city. The statistical population of the study consisted of 51 rural women entrepreneurs in Ilam city who were studied by census method. The data gathering tool was a researcher-made questionnaire whose content validity was confirmed by the opinion of the faculty members and experts of rural extension and development. The reliability of the research instrument was determined using Cronbach's alpha coefficient (α = 0.78). Data analysis was done using descriptive statistics and factor analysis with SSPS20 software. The results of factor analysis with exploratory approach led to the identification of four factors that explained in the form of educational training challenges, economic and legal challenges, individual and mental challenges, and socio-cultural challenges of 59.08% of the total variance. Extension and educational challenges as the first factor with a special amount of 2/631 had the highest share (21.62%) and social cultural challenges with a special amount of 1.306 of the lowest contribution (10.88%) in explaining the total variance.