The Impacts of Hosing Improvement on Changes in Economic Performance of Rural Housing Case study: Shamshir Rural District located in Paveh County

Introduction In our country, inappropriate physical housing in villages is the result of "bad housing" that can be inferred as one of the most important challenges in rural development. This phenomenon is the result of inappropriate resilient construction, worn-out houses, pollutions because of coexistence of animals and human, sharing the living space with working place; and these issues are caused by inappropriate economic, social and cultural characteristics that govern the rural society of the country and also they are derived from lack of attention to technical obligations, worn-out houses, lack of effective supervision, inadequate infrastructural and economic provision. Therefore, to decrease the bad housing condition in rural districts of the country, some efforts have been started through improvement and renovation of worn-out texture, retrofitting of rural buildings, provision of technical and quality regulations and obligation and issuing ownership documents together with codification of second phase of development plan that provide a good condition for socioeconomic changes in rural districts. These changes have impacts on meeting the needs of the residents and their quality of life, their livelihood changes, and rural housing functions through improvement of physical environment of the rural district. So, this study tries to answer the following questions: "Dose rural housing improvement lead to changes in housing components and economic functions of the houses in the studied rural district by using house retrofit loans"? And "Do these changes have a meaningful difference among villages of this rural district?” Methodology This is a practical study that uses descriptive-analytical methods to determine the issue and its results according to performed field studies (questionnaire, observation and interview). Shamshir rural district is located in Paveh County in the west of Kermanshah province and all the eight villages of this rural district are evaluated in this study. According to general population and housing census (1390) the total number of households in this rural district is 2593 households. 287 households are selected as sample population by using Cochran Formula and questionnaires were distributed randomly. For data analysis different statistical method have been used such as One Sample T-Test (to compare numerical mean), Wilcoxon Test (before and after rural housing improvement) and Kruskal Wallis Test (measuring current differences in the rank of diversification to economic activities in sample villages) and Spearman Correlation Coefficient Test. Discussion and Conclusion The results showed that most of new housings, which were constructed by the incentives of government including its credits and supervision, have a substructure of 100 square meters. To overcome the steep slope that governs the village site and to decrease the humidity, new housings are constructed according to a two-storey building design in which the ground flood is inhospitable. Studying the impacts of rural housing improvement and renovation shows widespread differences between two periods which were before and after this process. So, these changes can be mostly considered in housing building plans and maps and extensive modelling of urban housing designs, elimination of some basic elements of old housings and also high availability of facilities and infrastructure services; the basic reasons of these changes include logging bans in forests and pastures, discontinuing traditional way of living based on livestock farming and using forests, improvement of transportation roads and turning them to highways, proximity to Paveh county, and prevalence of unofficial economy and contraband trade. According to respondents' point of view, the results show that all of the studied components have a meaningful difference in periods before and after physical improvement. The most meaningful differences are in rendering services like mechanical service, carwash service, tire mounting and balancing service (-15.002), and employment in non-agricultural activities among men (-14.883) respectively, and the least meaningful differences are reported in such components like households' needs (bread, vegetables, fruit and dairy) (-6.398) and performing economic activities inside the home by women such as handicrafts and carpet weaving (-7.228). Moreover, correlation analysis shows that there is a meaningful relation between rural housing improvement components and components of nonagricultural activities among men (0.812), designing a special place for livestock (-0.603), assigning a part of the house to rendering automobile services (mechanical, carwash, tire mounting and balancing services) (0.600) and performing economic activities inside the home by women (0.324) at a level of 99 percent. In conclusion, the result of classification of changes in economic functions of rural housings in Shamshir rural district does not show a meaningful difference among the studied villages. Therefore, according to the respondents' point of view, the most average ranks in performing the studied economic activities are as follow: non-agriculture employment among men in Shamshir village; assigning a part of the house to services in Dorisan village; performingactivities related to gardening and assigning a place for production and selling the forest's products in Bandare village; and in designing a place for livestock and performing economic activities in home by women in Tazdeh, Bandare and Dorisan villages.