Analysis of the Role of Social Capital to Improve the Resilience of Rural Households in Drought Conditions in the County of Divandarreh

The main purpose of this study was to analyze the role of social capital to improve the resilience of rural households in drought conditions. The statistical population of this study included all of the headmen in small-scale farming households of the county of Divandarreh (N = 10099) in Kurdistan Province. Using Cochran's sampling formula, 184 people were selected as the sample, but, to increase the credibility of the findings, 200 people were selected. A questionnaire was distributed among them. Totally, 195 questionnaires were completed and analyzed. The sampling was done by the stratified random sampling method with proportional assignment. The main data collection tool of the research was a questionnaire whose validity was confirmed by a panel of experts. Its reliability was also confirmed by the Cronbach's alpha coefficient (α> 0.7). The data analysis was done by the SPSS version 18 and the Lisre l8.54 software programs. The results showed that the studied households are in a favorable situation in terms of social capital status, but they are not in a good condition in terms of resilience. The correlational analysis indicated positive and significant relationships between all the dimensions of the studied households’ social capital (i.e. social trust, participation and collective action, social cohesion and membership in groups) and their resilience. In addition, the results of structural equation modeling showed that the dimensions of social capital with the determining coefficient of 0.81 (γ = 0.90, t = 17.81) had positive and significant effects on the resilience of the households.