Investigating the Role of Rural Women Empowerment in analysis of the Economic Social and Cultural Factors Influencing Local Communities Development

In recent years, continuous awareness has increased on the need to empower rural women to achieve sustainable development. Therefore, this study has been conducted with the aim of investigating the role of rural women empowerment in analysis of the social and economic factors and cultural obstacles influencing local communities’ development. The study population was consist of rural women in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province that according to Krejcie and Morgan sample determination table, 384 of them were selected by stratified random sampling method. A questionnaire was used as research tools. Data analysis was performed by SPSS24 and AMOS22 software. The collected data was analyzed using structural equation modeling technique. The results based on direct structural model showed that there is a positive significant relationship between variables such as social participation, social protection and economic factors with the dependent variable of local communities’ development and there is a negative significant relationship between cultural obstacles with the dependent variable of local communities’ development. Also, based on the mediation structural model specified that rural women’s empowerment variable had a mediation role on the relationship between social and economic factors and cultural obstacles with local communities’ development