Relationship between Digital Divide and Empowerment of Shiraz Women

Women as half of the population of each society have important role in societies development. Accordingly, many sociologists consider study of women’s empowerment and its influencing factors. Present study is to examine the relationship between digital divide and women empowerment. In addition, women empowerment and its dimensions (access and control of resources, participation, gender awareness, mobility and security) were investigated. Also these independent variables: marital Status, respondents and their families’ Income, social class, Education level of respondents and their spouses, Head of household status, employment status, occupation, age, technology divide, information access divide, information literacy divide were investigated. By virtue of multistage random sampling, 600 ones were selected based on leen formula. Required Datas were collected from Shiraz women aged 15-54 by means of questionnaires based on survey method. The study findings indicated variables: social status, respondent and husband education, technology divide, and information literacy divide and information access had a significant relation with the women empowerment; while marital status had no significant relationship with women empowerment. Multiple regression showed that 27 percent of the variance of women empowerment variable was explained through the independent variables (information literacy divide, respondents under Graduate Diploma).