Studying the Effects of Social Capital Components on the Empowerment of Rural Women in Sheyan Village of Eslamabad-e Gharb City

Social capital is one of the most important concepts in the social science that it is widely used in other sciences and has a close relationship with women's empowerment. The present research was conducted to study the effects of social capital components on the empowerment of rural women. This study is application from objective aspect and descriptive- analytical from nature aspect. The data was gathered by library and field studies through questionnaires and interviews. Superficial validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by a panel of experts. To determine the reliability, the number of 35 questionnaires was distributed in the region and the rate for the whole sector was estimated 0.74 by Cronbach's alpha. The study population consisted of 3329 women in 13 villages of Shiyan rural district. The sample size was estimated 370 people based on the Cochran formula that the distribution of the number of samples in villages have been classificatory and in proportion to their population. The results of Pearson correlation coefficient indicates that there is a significant and positive relationship between social capital and empowering women. Also result of multivariate Regression indicate components of trust, partnership and solidarity explain 0.42 of changes in women's empowerment. Also according to Friedman test the component of self - determination has highest rank among empowerment components.