Designing a Model for Economic Empowerment of Female Heads of Households in Ilam Province

Female head of household as the poorest person is one of the most vulnerable sectors of society, accounting for a significant percentage of the population. They are particularly important in development planning because of the role and importance of family livelihoods. Empowerment and promotion of the quantitative and qualitative level of their lives can provide grounds for poverty reduction, reduction of gender inequality, expansion of economic independence of households, and so on. The purpose of this study was to design a model of economic empowerment of women Heads of Households in Ilam province, using a case study method. The statistical population of the study is experts in the field of empowerment of women in different departments and organizations of the province. Using theoretical sampling, 28 experts were selected and the data were extracted through in-depth interviews with the aforementioned experts to achieve theoretical saturation. To analyze the obtained qualitative information, the grounded theory method has been used. The results showed that 43 concepts were obtained through open encoding, 7 axial categories by axial encoding and a nuclear category through selective encoding. The results also showed that the experts identified the new semantic of the economic empowerment of female headed households is in modifying and changing the traditional model of women's empowerment, and moving towards the completion of the value chain and identifying the underlying circles in order to achieve a new plan for the organization of home-based job and entrepreneurship Families, specially female heads of households.