Analyzing the causes of low participation of rural women by using mixed method Case: rural district of Sina in Varzeghan County

Introduction The idea of "ignoring economic labor" of rural women and their role in providing households' financial and non-financial resources is deeply ingrained in cultural fabric of our society that is hardly possible to change the notion of "men being sole breadwinners". The rate of women participation in the employment and labor market is much less than men. This is due to the presence of social, legal, and economic barriers and cultural and traditional restrictions. In Iran, the main activities of rural women can be summarized in three sectors; agriculture, rural industries and rural services. Currently, according to the information contained in the (2011-2012) 1390 Statistical Yearbook, 14987out of 37 958 people, as the population of 10 years and more in the County of Varzeghan, constitute the employed active population. It makes a portion of 13098 for rural areas. The share of female population employed in agriculture, forestry and fishing in the province has reported to be 26116 people within which the overall share of the total population of Varzeghan has been 8280. Although rural women are not counted in agriculture sector, many women of the County are participating in this sector. While rural women try alongside men in agriculture, because of certain traditional beliefs and public imagination there are always barriers for rural women's participation in the labor market. Considering the importance of this issue, this article aims at answering the questions that "what is the main obstacle facing the employment of rural women in Varzeghan County?" and "What is the impact of other effective barriers on the employment?" Methodology We have used mixed method approaches in the article. Since the sequence of qualitative and quantitative research methods is known as one of the features of mixed research, we have used first the qualitative and then the quantitative ones. In the first stage, in order to identify different causal conditions, as factors affecting the low participation of rural women in the workforce, a qualitative method was used in which we have interviewed with literate women. Then, to achieve the desired result in the second stage, qualitative research findings were used in developing the questionnaire, whereas obtained quantitative data were used to provide a structural model. The questionnaires were completed by literate girls and women livelihood in rural district of Sina. Using Cochran formula, sample size was calculated to be 300 people, with the confidence interval of 0.95. A simple random sampling method was used and the questionnaires were formulated by a number of 15 closing questions that their options were assessed based on rating Likert scale. Its validity was estimated based on its formal validity and its reliability was calculated 0.919 by Cronbach's alpha which indicates that the questionnaires are highly reliable. Table 3 shows the output of SPSS software. Discussion and conclusion Considering the development of different societies and urban areas along with the development of rural societies, rural girls and women are no longer interested in participating in agricultural sector. Instead, they are getting to the employment of nonagricultural manufacturing jobs as well as government and service ones. Casual barriers affecting the employment of rural women in the area under study can be classified in four groups of individual, family, socio-cultural, and management-structural barriers. These are multiple-effect barriers which are related to each other. Being remote as a variable for villages and individual and family factors are of the highest importance. Given the casual barriers of the phenomenon, lifestyle changes are evident in the rural community. The main reason of most villagers' migration is to find appropriate non-agricultural jobs. Among them, there are some migrant girls that not only have they achieve their goals of employment in urban communities but also there is not enough attraction in their ancestral home of insufficient facilities to make them return. Variables such as education, marital status and income level are commonly considered as intervening obstacles facing the employment of rural women. It is certain that changes in social customs, values and traditions as well as lifestyle changes can make rural women have less or no tendency to live in rural areas and move to cities. Changes in lifestyle, family system, and social customs and values are all strategies taken by rural community to minimize the effect of barriers affecting the employment of girls and women. Of course, these strategies have their special consequences. They may cause late marriage or the rise of average marriage age which are effective in the creation of social and moral corruption in the society. Rural to urban migration can lead to economic poverty which is by itself one of the most important factors causing corruption in the society. Changes in social customs and values can also lead to reluctance to agricultural activities which is due to familiarity with urban life. A combination of factors like these cause inappropriate behaviors b rural girls and women.