The Impact of Resources, Channels of Information and Communication on Empowerment of Rural Women in Diwandareh County

Introduction
Rural women constitute about half of the world’s population and in the world production supply they have energetic communion and constitute a great part of agriculture workforce. They constitute50% of the workforce and participate in the production of half of the foods in the agriculture section. As an example the rural women constitute about 70 to 80% of agriculture workforce in sub-Saharan Africa, 65% in Asia, 45% in Latin American & Caribbean, 80% in Nigeria & Tunisia and 80% in India. However, their role in production is usually supplementary to men’s roles causing a big responsibility along with their mother & wife duties and it takes a great time and energy of them. Studies in this field show that women spend about two thirds of their time for production, management & organization of their house whereas men only spend one third of their time for such things. In developing countries, rural societies are usually in poverty for various reasons so that these societies become deprived of many human development programs. Every country intends to propose appropriate policies to tackle this critical problem. Poverty spreading in villages is a global issue. According to the FAO findings about 75% of poor people in the world that are more than 1 billion people are living in rural zones so that more than 70% of these people are women. The empowerment can be defined as an evolution and envelopment of activity through private organizations that guides empowerment in the society toward economic improvement. In addition, empowerment is a process through which people can do activities to conquest on development obstacles that enable them to assign their destiny.
 
Methodology
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the role of resources and channels of information and communication on empowerment of rural women. The population of this study consists of all rural women above 15years in the Diwandareh county (Kurdistan Province) (N=17101). Using Cochran's sampling formula, 131 women are selected as the samples in this study. To enhance the reliability of findings, 180 questionnaires are distributed using proportionally the stratified random sampling method. Ultimately 166 questionnaires are completed, and then they are analyzed in the SPSS software. The instrument of the study is a questionnaire which its validity has been confirmed by a panel of experts and its reliability was established by calculating Chronbach's Alfa Coefficient (α> 0.7).
 
Results
Correlation analysis results show that resources and channels of information and communication (Local, National, and International) are significantly correlated with the empowerment of rural women (P < 0.01). Also, regression analysis shows that, 53.2 percent of changes in capabilities of rural women can be explained by resources and channels of information and communication.
  
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