Investigating the Mediating Role of Self-esteem and Risk taking in the Analysis of Factors Influencing Rural women's self-employment

Nowadays one of the most important criteria for assessing the degree of development of a country is the level of women's employment. Therefore, more attention to women's employment leads to better use of this potential capacity in society. This study has been conducted with the aim of investigation factors influencing rural women's self-employment. The population of this study was including rural women in Zanjan Province that 200 of them were selected by using cluster sampling method (only 188 questionnaires were usable). A questionnaire was used to collect the data. Data analysis was performed by using SPSS20 and AMOS20 software. The collected data was analyzed using structural equation modeling multivariate technique. The results based on direct structural model with Bayesian estimation method showed that economic conditions, social conditions and education and extension courses had a significant direct effect on rural women's self-employment. Also, the result based on the mediation structural model showed that self-esteem and risk taking variables had a partial mediation on the relationship between economic conditions and social conditions with rural women's self-employment, and risk taking variable had a full mediation on the relationship between extension and educational courses with rural women's self-employment. Generally availability of economic and social conditions and conducting appropriate educational and extension programs along with strengthening individual capabilities such as self-esteem and risk-taking can be the basis for self-employment development among rural women.