Assessment and Designing the Rural Women Participation in Domestic Occupations, According to Shirley Aniston ladder: Application of Structural Equation

Women are involved in various production activities and play an important role in family and the national-level economic. One of the important aspects of women's economic activity is domestic occupations. Domestic occupation is an occupation that launching with family members in the residential space. It is defined as an important strategy for creating jobs and incomes especially for women, around the world.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: This research draws women participation in domestic occupations according to Sherry Ernestine ladder. In this research, the levels of participation is categorized based on the Sherry Ernestine ladder then past studies and structural equation model has been paid to study the factors affecting women's participation in domestic occupations. According to the Sherry Ernestine ladder of participation, there are eight types of partnership or 8 steps; each step shows the strength of people in decision making. The first step of participation ladder is "Manipulation" and the second step is "Therapy". These two-steps actually represents the lack of participation in decision making The third step of participation ladder is "Informing" and fourth step is called "Consultation" and the fifth step of participation ladder is called "Placation". Step 6 of participation ladder is called "partnership" the participants to be able to negotiate a deal with the government agencies. The seventh step is "Delegated power" and the eighth step is called "control".
This research is a quantitative and applied. In this research, descriptive-correlation method was used. The population was formed of rural women around the Kangavar city who used the self-employed loans to set up a domestic occupation. Census method was used based on a sample size. The main tool for research in the field was questionnaire that was made based on theoretical basis. Cronbach's alpha was used to estimate reliability. The rate of this index was 0.82 – 0.93, that shows we have a reliable questionnaire. A total of 168 questionnaires were filled out perfect. After completing the operation coding data, information extraction and transfer it was done on a computer. Statistical analysis (descriptive and inferential) was performed, after the data processing, by using SPSS and AMOS software.
Ranking of the respondents was performed based on the Friedman test. Finding indicated that therapy, Informing and manipulation were in better condition among the other rural women participation components, while other elements of participation among rural women is declining and risky and women can be vulnerable in this area. The results showed rural women’s views and significant positive relationship between the external components like: socio-cultural, professional individual, institutional management, and economic participation of women in domestic occupations. The independent variables effects indicated that socio-cultural factors have the greatest positive effect in women participation (0.44) and economic factors have the least effect (0.14) on the dependent variable. Moreover, other relationship assessment show that economic and socio-cultural variables with the value of 0.45, have the greatest variance. This indicates that there is a significant positive relationship between the economic power of a person and his attention to social and cultural issues. In addition to the direct effects, the results indicate that socio-cultural and economic factors have a direct impact on the apparent participation rate and institutional - management has the greatest indirect effect (0.41). So, that in total variables involved in the model explained 76% of the participation variance.
Based on the findings, the current plan is top-down decision without considering the real needs of rural women. Therapy is the first priority. There was a positive significant relationship among independent variables and participation and path analyses results show that economic, socio - cultural, professional and institutional - management components explain a total 76 percent of the women participation in domestic occupations. According to the results some recommendations presented: 1. Based on the findings, authorities and practitioners in the field of agricultural development and rural planners should be pushed to reduce this problem with the right planning and need assessment.
2. Promotion of society culture towards acceptance and expansion of women's participation in the development process of rural economic activities, especially domestic occupations planning, development projects and programs of rural development in the economic sector based on the rural women needs and priorities and encouraging them to participate in economic projects and reduce legal and institutional obstacles for them and legislation supported laws about women's participation in rural economic processes.
3. recommended to understand the real needs of rural women in the field of economics and management and engage them to participate in these programs by purposively needs assessment through focus groups.
4. According to the participation in partnership step, recommended to launch domestic occupations associations in rural communities to produce programs in mass media, particularly for women, in order to meet their technical and technological needs.