The Effects of Local Participation in Improvement of Women Life Quality; Case Study: Neighborhoods of Ahang, Homayoun Shahr and Aghdasiye in Tehran

Urban studies thinkers consider citizens' participation as one of the infrastructures for increasing in the capabilities of urban management. In order to citizens' participation to be meaningful and express the main concept of participation, it must be on a local scale and then reach the transnational arena. Neighborhoods, as the most fundamental elements of cities, have a special place in shaping and organizing the affairs of Tehran. With the establishment of the Pahlavi government and the effort to modernize Iran and the growth and increase in the population of cities, the traditional structures of urban life, including neighborhoods, underwent a transformation. The Law of City Associations was approved before the revolution, but it took many years to pay attention to neighborhood life again with the formation and implementation of the city's Islamic councils in 1998. In recent years, the neighborhood has been defined as the center of concentration and connection of urban services - people and municipality - in the smallest structural area of Tehran municipality. This center was chosen in such a way that all the possible capacities of the municipality can be delegated to it, and at the same time, concrete and objective participation of the citizens was directed to it in all areas that can be participated in, and new and up-to-date functions were defined for it. New social theories consider women's participation in sustainable development processes to be essential, and since the field of women's activity is traditionally wider in the fields of family and neighborhood, the local administration has envisioned a special role for women in city affairs and implemented special programs to improve their quality of life. In an environmental approach, women have the ability to play a greater role as leaders or active participants in smaller communities such as urban neighborhoods. It can be said that women play an essential role in local social cohesion. This type of connection is especially necessary to achieve social planning and successful management in multicultural societies. Because experience has shown that women pay attention to the dimensions of the needs of all groups in society and are not limited to the views and desires of powerful and effective members of society and often seek to create bridges over social, cultural and racial divisions as well as incompatibilities in society. That society will lead to a better life.

Based on this, the current research tries to investigate the effect of local women's participation in the programs of active organizations (Serai Mahlah) on improving their quality of life. Angeh, Homayun Shahr and Aqdasiye neighborhoods were introduced and selected as examples by the neighborhood management strategic headquarters because of their active role in this matter. In the current research, a survey method was used with the two goals of description and explanation. At the level of description, the goal is to provide information on the level of participation of women in the administration of neighborhood affairs, and at the level of explanation and analysis, the goal is to find the existence or non-existence of a relationship between independent and dependent variables. At the same time, it has been used to compile the theoretical foundations and review previous researches in a documentary (library) way. The statistical population of the research is made up of the women of Tehran's active neighborhoods in the field of participation in the administration of city affairs, and on this basis, two groups of active and inactive women were selected from among the women of these neighborhoods and investigated. In this research, the sample size is 240 tons, which was determined based on Cochran's formula, which is divided into two parts (124 active tons and 116 inactive tons). In the sampling method, there are two important reasons for choosing the neighborhood center, one is that the manager of the neighborhood is a woman, and the other is the introduction by the neighborhood management strategic headquarters as the most active centers in the neighborhoods of Tehran, which are Angeh, Homayoun Shahr, and Aqdasiyeh neighborhoods. Available sampling method was used to select local activists and random sampling method was used for inactive people. A questionnaire was used to collect information. After verifying its validity and reliability in the preliminary stages of the research, the questionnaire was used to collect the required data in the final stage. The results obtained from this research show that the existence of the neighborhood management institution shows that the participation of citizens is recognized as a necessity and need for collective life, and women are not excluded from this as citizens of the society. Sarai Mahalat is active as one of the sub-institutions of neighborhood management, and the use of the services provided in it can have a significant impact on improving the quality of life of women in various dimensions, and the officials are required to provide the necessary conditions to create the necessary infrastructure and facilities in this regard. On the other hand, they should create the necessary motivation in women in different ways so that they also become eager to participate in local affairs (various aspects), because compared to men, women devote more time to work inside and around the house (local area), so they have deeper experiences, knowledge and insight to build the environment around them. According to Arnstein and Hannah Arendt, if women can have an active participation in the administration of local affairs and not just a theatrical participation, they can actualize and realize their potential talents in various fields. It seems that if the participation of women at the local level has positive results (as the results of this research confirm this), it will lead to this fact that women are encouraged to participate at higher levels of society, which will facilitate the development of the country.

In the present study, the impact of the use of services provided in Sarai Mahalat on the quality of life of service users was investigated in different dimensions. At first, the presence or absence of a relationship was measured using Pearson's correlation coefficient, which confirmed the existence of a relationship between women's local participation and the improvement of their quality of life in different dimensions. In the following, the difference between the average scores of the group that used the services and the group that did not use the services was investigated using the T-test, and according to the obtained scores, the hypotheses of the research were confirmed. After that, two-dimensional tables were used to clarify the relationship between dependent and independent variables. The results of these tables show that the intensity of the relationship between local participation with the quality of life and physical health is greater than the intensity of its relationship with economic empowerment.