علی حاجی نژاد

Purpose-Women's participation in decision-making processes is a prerequisite for achieving sustainable development in local communities. However, despite the importance and necessity of involving all members of society in various aspects of development, unfortunately, due to various reasons (economic, social, cultural, and institutional), insufficient attention has been given to this matter. Consequently, the role of women's participation in rural development is significantly weak. Therefore, one crucial aspect of rural development planning is to focus on the participation of rural women and examine the obstacles they face.Design/methodology/approach -This research is descriptive-analytical in terms of its practical purpose and methodology. The data collection tools consisted of questionnaires and interviews conducted with a sample of 378 women from the villages of Lasht Nesha district in Rasht city. Descriptive statistics and exploratory factor analysis were used to analyze the data.Findings-The test results revealed that five categories of factors constitute the primary obstacles to rural women's participation in the villages of Lesht-nesha district. These categories include: the status of social capital, education, health, and social characteristics, explaining a variance value of 17.32% motivation, self-awareness, and cognitive characteristics, explaining a variance value of 16.83% financial and economic status and characteristics, explaining a variance of 12.43% beliefs, community customs, and cultural characteristics, explaining 8.86% of the variance; and justice, gender equality, and institutional-political characteristics, explaining 8.55% of the total variance.Originality/value - Overall, the results indicate that the barriers related to the social capital status, education, health, and social characteristics are more relevant to the participation of rural women.

Purpose- Leisure is influential in shaping social identity and helpful for social growth, which occurs in legal and illegal ways. The illegal form is a behavior that is out of control and causes irreversible damage to individuals and their families. Therefore, investigating the role of illegal leisure time (gambling and betting games) is necessary to improve the quality of social life, especially for rural households. To this end, this study aims to investigate the role of illegal leisure time, particularly gambling, on the social conditions of rural households. Design/methodology/approach - This research is descriptive-analytical in terms of its aim and method. The data collection tools are questionnaires and interviews from a sample of 362 households. The statistical population is rural households, both involved and uninvolved, in Varza Jang (an animal fight tournament) located in Kuchesfahan District, Belesbeneh Rural District (N = 5819). A sample group was selected using Cochran’s Formula and Quota sampling. In addition, a one-sample t-test, Friedman rank test and path analysis were used to analyze the data. Findings- The results of the t-test showed that in the component of social anomalies, the indicator of violence and tension in the family with an average of 3.86 had the highest, and the indicator of suicide with an average of 1.39 had the lowest social effects on the studied rural households. Also, in the component of family and individual abnormalities and problems, the stress indicator in children with an average of 3.91 had the highest, and the indicator of family separation and divorce with an average of 2.89 had the lowest average affecting the social effects of the respondents. Also, the results of the path analysis showed that betting and gambling were effective on all indicators of the two components of social anomalies and individual anomalies. Originality/value- For this reason, gambling significantly impacts children's stress, violence, tension and divorce in families.

Purpose- Among the most important challenges in the agricultural sector are lack of optimal use of production factors, multiplicity of parcels and dispersion of agricultural lands. Land consolidation is one of the effective solutions which can change the size of fields and organize them to increase production, especially in paddy fields, which facilities agricultural development and ultimately achieves a sustainable livelihood in rural areas. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the success rate of paddy field consolidation project through the study of a group of farmers who are included in the land consolidation project. Design/Method/Approach- The population of the study consisted of 285 farmers from 11 villages of Choobar rural district in Shaft County who have been selected by regular sampling method. To collect the data, library and survey methods (observation and questionnaires) have been used. Cronbach's alpha was used to measure the reliability of the research tools, and in the analytical part, single-sample t-test was used to evaluate the success rate of the project in Choobar rural district; To investigate the relationship between land consolidation project and improvement in economic indicators of rural households, initially Spearman correlation coefficient was used, then simple regression test and coefficient of determination R2 were used to measure the effectiveness of the project on economic indicators. Finding- The research findings on the level of economic and social dimensions and the assessment of the success rate of the project in Choobar rural district showed the project was moderately to highly successful in the study area. The effects of the project in improving the socio-economic indicators of rural households in Choobar rural district are such that the highest correlations were found between the project and economic indicators in the use of machinery, land infrastructure, productivity, household employment, ease of access to machinery and manpower, income, and investment; At the level of social indicators the highest correlations were respectively found in interpersonal and generalized trust, objective participation, sense of physical security, insurance services, formal participation, conflict reduction and institutional trust. From farmers’ perspective, among the socio-economic indicators, the infrastructure indicator which is created by the government and the use of machinery after the implementation of the project, and the ease of access to machinery and manpower, interpersonal and generalized trust have had the greatest impact on the implementation of the project.

INTRODUCTION: Natural disasters in rural settlements are responsible for a broad range of financial and human losses. In this regard, the resilience approach has gained renewed attention to minimize the disruptive impacts of natural catastrophes. Therefore, adequate knowledge about the status of resilience enables us to take efficient measures to reduce resultant injuries and destructive effects. With this background in mind, the current study aimed to investigate the relationship between economic and socio-cultural resilience of rural settlements in Silakhor rural district in Dorud. METHODS: This practical study was conducted based on an analytical-descriptive design. The statistical population included 1539 earthquake-stricken households of Silakhor village (according to household information from the 2016 Census). Out of this population, 308 families were selected as the sample size using the Cochran's formula. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by a panel of experts, and its reliability was evaluated using Cronbach's alpha method rendering the coefficients of 0.910 and 0.854 for the economic and socio-cultural dimension, respectively. One-Sample T-Test and Pearson correlation were used to examine the status of resilience and the relationship between economic resilience and socio-cultural resilience. FINDINGS: As evidenced by the obtained results, rural settlements were socio-culturally resilient with the mean score of >3, while they were somewhat resilient in the economic dimension with the mean score of nearly 3. CONCLUSION: The results of the Pearson correlation pointed to a positive and significant relationship between economic and social resilience with a correlation coefficient of 0.420 and a significance level of P<0.00.