The Effect of Social Awareness on Empowerment Level of Rural Women (Zanjanrood District, Zanjan Township)

This paper investigates the influence of social awareness on the empowerment of rural women in Zanjanrood District. In this study, qualitative- quantitative research method is used. For the part of qualitative study, some experts of social awareness of rural women are used. The population of quantitative part of this study includes 15455 women of Zanjanrood city of whom 386 persons were randomly selected as a sample. The data were gathered by using a questionnaire whose validity was confirmed by faculty of Agricultural Extension and Education of Razi University and Reliability was confirmed by pretesting and calculation of alpha coefficient of 0.79. The data were analyzed by SPSS 18 software. The results showed 58 percent of rural women’s social awareness was moderate. Rural women on issues such as the right of women in prison and pay proverbs had least knowledge, but on issues such as the determination of living location and amount of daughter’s inheritance had most knowledge. The findings indicated the average amount of empowerment rural women (average of 2.8 out of 5). Linear regression was used to determine the effect of independent variables (social consciousness) on the dependent variable (empowerment). The results showed that the independent variables could explain 43% of the variability that is empowerment.