Studying the Role of Urban Female Activity in Achieving Sustainable Rural Development in Rural district of Ashaghabad, Neyshabour

Since the poorest people of the world live in rural areas, it is essential to take rural development into consideration by using appropriate strategies for improving the utilization of regional resources, increasing production, reducing the exodus of villagers to cities, capital raising and increasing job opportunities (Sojasi Qeydari et al. 2013). Achieving these goals will not be possible without knowing the status of the villages and groups existing there. Clearly, identifying the less-considered rural groups in rural development programs is more important. According to most rural development experts rural women are one of the groups that have been less considered by rural development planners and decision makers because of various economic, social and cultural reasons (Mirlotfi et al. 2013). Unfortunately, despite the important role of rural women in raising their generations and their activities in various economic, social and cultural fields in pursuit of sustainable development, the presence of women in development activities has been overlooked by the authorities and the study area was not excluded from this matter and so far, no scientific studies has been properly conducted in Neyshabur County’s Eshagh Abad on the role of rural women in the pursuit of sustainable development; however, women in this village play a significant and perhaps stronger role than men in advancing the life cycle and removing barriers to development, it was necessary to examine the importance of the role of rural women in achieving the goals of the development and the role of women's activities in the sustainable development of rural areas in Neyshabur County’s Eshagh Abad.
Having two main sub-sections, in this research we used an applied and descriptive-analytical method to study the parameters. The first part is devoted to documentary and library studies in order to investigate such topics as theoretical literature of the subject and the research background, and the second part is conducted in the form of field research and survey for collecting information and then compiling and completing the questionnaire. The statistical population of the study includes all women over 15 years old living in Eshagh Abad district, which is 3921 ones according to the statistics in 2011. The sample size was determined 384 by the Cochran formula at 95% confidence interval (T = 1.96). In the next steps of the study, data analysis was done in a questionnaire using SPSS software, and one-sample t-test, Pearson correlation and Pro-technique were used to answer the questions.
Women's occupation in the agricultural and livestock sector, with an average of 3.25, is significantly higher than the average (Sig = 0.000). Besides, their role with an average of 3.1, is more than average (sig. 000) In the industrial sector, determined with confirmation of 99%. Therefore, it can be concluded that the calculated test in the agricultural and livestock sector is statistically significant. But in the service sector, according to the average obtained, it is equal to 1.21 and sip 0/541 less than average, which is not confirmed because in the studied area service sectors employment contains more men than women. Other results suggest that there is a direct and significant relationship among the dimensions of sustainable development, that is, by improving the situation in one dimension, the other dimensions will get better.
The relationship between women's occupation (agriculture, livestock, industry and services) and the dimensions of sustainable development were used by Pearson correlation coefficient. The results of this analysis indicate that there is a direct and meaningful relationship between agricultural-livestock activities index and sustainable development indicators in economic, social and cultural dimensions with a significant level less than 0.005 and the correlation values are 0.86, 0.73, and 0.61 respectively.
Moreover, there is a direct and significant relationship between the index of industrial activities and sustainable development with the significance level less than 0.005% and the correlation among economic, social and cultural indicators are 0.41, 0.22 and 0.21 respectively. As the results of the research reveal, the effect of women's activities on improving the indicators of sustainable development in the agricultural-livestock sector was higher than the industry, which is due to the fact that women's employment and tendency in the field of agriculture and livestock farming is greater than the industry sector, and also there is lower number of industries in the village.
However, there was no direct and significant relationship between the service activity index and the indicators of sustainable development as the achieved significance level was higher than 0.005% due to low women's employment in the service sector, women's activities in this sector has no direct and significant impact on sustainable rural development.
Promethee technique was used to prioritize the villages of the studied region based on the indicators of sustainable development. At first, the decision matrix was based on the collected data from the questionnaires including economic, social and cultural dimensions and 17 villages in Eshagh Abad. Regarding the rankings, it was revealed that Eshagh Abad's villages are not at the same level in terms of sustainable development indicators. Eshagh Abad village has the highest rank and Aziziyeh village has the lowest.
Among the villages in the studied area, women have a significant role in housekeeping, agriculture, industry and services, which even women's role is far greater than that of men in many of these areas. Therefore, women have an important influence on the development of the rural areas of this region, but unfortunately the rights of this group and their role on the development of this region are ignored. Considering the undeniable power of rural women in improving and eventually causing a sustainable development is an important matter. The results of the analyzes carried out in the studied area also indicate the important role of women in the development of the agricultural-livestock sector and industry, but in the service sector, rural men's presence is more perceptible than that of the rural women.