The Effectiveness of Structural Empowerment on Women's Participation in Tourism Development Projects and Spatial Evolutions of Rural Settlements in Shahrud and Miami Counties

The approach of structural empowerment of rural women with the aim of participating in tourism development projects is one of the most prominent approaches in the field of spatial developments of rural settlements, which is in four factors such as learning opportunities, receiving information, access to resources and Support is effective on spatial evolutions. Structural empowerment based on education and raising awareness to rural women about the benefits and costs of tourism development, cultivating local knowledge and skills to benefit from various job opportunities, facilitating access to material and spiritual resources and looking at the formation of organizations, is effective on Woman’s compatible perception for participation in tourism development projects and spatial evolutions of rural settlements. However, in Iran, unproductive education has turned women into "Objective human" in the process of tourism development projects and has challenged their participation, which hinders development and spatial evolutions. Therefore, the purpose of the current research is to investigate the effect of structural empowerment on woman’s compatible perception of tourism development projects and motivating factors for rural women's participation in the spatial evolutions of rural settlements. 

The statistical population of this practical and quantitative research includes 33 villages active in the tourism sector with 15,196 households, which was randomly calculated by the number of 400 samples based on Cochran's formula, and the questionnaires were completed in 2021. The statistical methods used are correlation analysis and structural equation model (PLS). Modeling was done in two steps. In the first step, the reliability of the index has been confirmed by Cronbach's alpha criteria, which is higher than 0.7, and composite reliability has been confirmed by values higher than CR<0.6. The structural empowerment of rural women with a coefficient of 0.824 has a strong and significant relationship with woman’s compatible perception of tourism development projects and spatial evolutions of rural settlements; the woman’s compatible perception also has a high correlation with the coefficient of 0.852 with the dimensions of participation in the spatial evolutions of rural settlements. In the second step, all obvious variables related to hidden variables were tested separately. The values of the fit indices confirmed the measurement patterns in the conceptual model.

The findings showed that the path coefficient is significant at the 95% confidence level; because the value of t is greater than 1.96. Based on the of path coefficients values and t value, rural woman’s compatible perception of tourism development projects with their structural empowerment with the path coefficient of 0.830 and the t value equal to 48.014 indicates a positive and significant relationship and is confirmed. Women’s participation in tourism development projects and spatial evolutions also has a positive and significant relationship with woman’s compatible perception of tourism development projects and spatial evolutions, with a path coefficient of 0.382 and a t value of 6.866. In order to measure the mediation hypothesis, the results of the Sobel test showed that there is a mediating and indirect relationship between structural empowerment with the mediating role of woman’s compatible perception and their participation in tourism development projects and spatial evolutions of rural settlements. This research is in line with the results of Irawan and Nara's research (Irawan and Nara, 2020). They believe that empowerment in all dimensions in effective participation and benefits from tourism and their fair distribution has led to the development of tourism in society. 

The average results of variables show that structural empowerment has been effective on woman’s compatible perception of their participation in tourism development projects and spatial evolutions of rural settlements in the studied area. The effective role of women in these projects is undeniable and it is difficult to succeed without the participation of women. Therefore, the empowerment of rural women is important, because it can be effective in creating sustainable cycles of empowering them, including gender equality and increasing income. Nevertheless, it is suggested to pay more attention to the effectiveness of structural empowerment and compatible perception with the purpose of Strengthening for the continuation and increase of women’s participation and also in order to prevent the upcoming challenges of empowerment.