Strategies for creating employment in the agricultural sector and preventing rural youth migration: A case study of Kaboudar Ahang city, Hamadan

The phenomenon of migration of rural youth to cities is one of the most important reasons for not achieving the goals of rural development. Because rural youth are considered as human capital and the lack of employment is an important issue for them that inevitably forces most of the youth to migrate. Based on this, the main question of the research was, which factors are effective in creating employment in the agricultural sector and preventing the migration of rural youth, and which ones have more priority? This research was conducted in 12 villages of Kabudar Ahang. The statistical population consisted of 100,000 people in 124 villages, of which 384 young people were randomly selected using Morgan's table. The data was collected through a questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS and PLS software and using the Friedman test. Examining the results of the hypotheses test showed that among the various factors investigated, the economic factor with an average of 3.9 ranks first. This shows that the economic factor is the most important factor of migration from Kabudrahang villages. Also, the geographical-climatic factor has the lowest average of 2.96. It also showed that among the dimensions of employment creation factors, the dimension of establishment of agricultural transformation and supplementary industries with an average of 3.77 and the dimension of handicrafts with an average of 3.63 had the highest and lowest averages, respectively. Employment creation factors strongly predict migration factors by 66%. According to the results of the research, there are several solutions for the development of youth employment in the agricultural sector, among them are the creation of agricultural tourism, the establishment of transformation and complementary industries and packaging, agricultural entrepreneurship, changing the attitude of the youth towards agricultural jobs. and improving productivity