Identifying and Prioritizing the Ways of Empowering Female Heads of Households

Over the past decades, women have been more exposed to sexual discrimination than men. This is because women did not have the capabilities and facilities needed to empower  themselves and reduce poverty. Empowerment is essential for the empowerment of low-income people to achieve their rights. Therefore, it is necessary to identify and introduce womenchr('39')s empowerment methods.

The present research is applied in terms of purpose and is descriptive. The present research is a quantitative and descriptive-analytical study. This research seeks to identify and prioritize the ways to empower female-headed households with Fuzzy Delphi (F-DELPHI) and Network Analysis Process (NAP). Data collection tools were interviews and questionnaires. the interview and questionnaires were conducted in the well-being office of the  city of Savadkuh (Polsefid).

Based on the results of library studies and interviews, possible ways of empowering female-headed households were identified and categorized into three levels of person, family, and society. After distributing the questionnaire among the experts of the field and prioritizing the possible ways, the main and important ways identified were promoting social health, providing professional training, providing life skills training, creating markets, rehabilitation, providing the facilities, providing insurance and social security services, providing necessary goods, allocating more Funds for organizations to support women and offering allowances to improve individual welfare.

The results showed that personal empowerment-based ways have a higher priority than ways to empower through direct financial assistance. These ways attracted the experts attention.