The Impact of Handicraft Revival on the Empowerment of Rural Women (Case Study: Tourism Target Villages in Alamut Region)

The empowerment of rural women and the enhancement of their participation in the development of rural areas are among the most critical concerns for women in developing countries. The adoption of pertinent policies and the development processes can be significantly influenced by the identification of the factors and drivers that affect women's empowerment in rural development contexts, as well as the attention paid to the role of women and gender discourse. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the effect of revitalizing handicrafts on the empowerment of rural women in the villages of Alamut region of Qazvin province. This study is a quantitative research paradigm, an applied research objective, and a causal-relational one in terms of method. The statistical population of this study is all rural women active in the field of handicrafts, and the sample size was estimated to be 100 individuals using random sampling. After conducti​ng descriptive analysis with SPSS22 and PLS3 software and employing structural equations, hypotheses were evaluated in order to analyze the research data. The empowerment of rural women in the study area is positively and significantly influenced by the revival of handicrafts in the psychological (β=0.812), social (β=0.682), and economic (β=0.321) dimensions, according to the results of the structural equation modeling approach. Consequently, it is imperative to allocate adequate attention to these factors in order to enhance the empowerment of rural women in the study area and other rural regions of the country.