A Qualitative Study of the Consequences of Women’s Empowerment in Kerman

Abstract
Empowerment is a process whose goal is the full participation of women in decisions related to their own lives. In this process, women are empowered and their agency is recognized as activists and agents of change. It is a process in which women describe and recreate what they could and could not do before. This empowerment can include measures to improve the status of women through education, increasing awareness, literacy, and training. Women can increase self-confidence to play a role and actively participate in decision-making on various issues of society. Empowerment has a long history in the world, and in Iran, there are activities to empower women. These programs are being implemented in Kerman City as well, but the consequences of these programs have not been given much attention. Therefore, the purpose of this Grounded Theory is to discover and understand the consequences of women’s empowerment in the city of Kerman from the point of view of the participants in these programs, and the main issue of the current research is what are the consequences of the women’s empowerment in Kerman and what are the consequences of participating in these programs for women. had? To collect data, semi-structured in-depth interviews were used and interviews were conducted with 21 women who participated in the empowerment processes of government organizations and people’s institutions in Kerman until reaching theoretical saturation. In addition to theoretical sampling, the sampling method was purposeful and maintained maximum diversity. Then, using open, central, and selective coding, the research findings were extracted. By extracting interviews and performing three stages of coding, 18 sub-categories and 5 main categories were obtained, and the main categories are the consequences of women’s empowerment in Kerman city, which are: personal development, life management, financial prosperity, and facing difficulties. continuity and creativity. The core category is also: reproduction.
Keywords: Grounded Theory, Empowerment, Regeneration, Women.
 
1. Introduction
The Human Development Report (1995) considers empowerment as one of the four main components of the human development model, the other three components of which are productivity, equality, and sustainability. Empowerment means full participation of people in the decisions and processes that shape their lives. Empowerment is empowering an individual, a group, or a society as a whole so that the members participate in that process, make decisions about it, have access to it, and have the freedom to choose the issues of which they are in the system. Deprived beings, enjoy.
From a historical perspective, the term empowerment was used in connection with the development of society and groups that were marginalized in its framework. The term was first used in 1983 by the International Women’s Studies Association, “Power and Empowerment”. According to the existing literature in the field of women’s empowerment, “employment is the ticket of empowerment”. Most of the researchers in the existing texts have mentioned education and employment as key indicators of empowerment. Also, the origin of the concept of empowerment can be attributed to Freire, who emphasized education as a tool for the liberation of marginalized people by challenging social inequalities in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s. Also, women’s empowerment and gender equality is one of the important matters considered in the Millennium Development Goals, in Iran, the role of women and their empowerment has been paid attention to in development programs. In general, the approach of development programs in Iran can be considered to improve the attitude towards women’s empowerment. The empowerment of female heads of households has received special attention from the fourth to the sixth program in the field of empowerment, especially its economic aspect.
Therefore, activities have been carried out to empower women, and the main focus of these activities has been to create employment for women, which includes Jihad Agriculture microcredits; He pointed out the empowerment and rehabilitation plans of women heads of the household, the welfare organization and Imam Khomeini’s relief committee, the governorate, the municipality, and people’s organizations focusing on women and the family. In the city of Kerman, these programs are being implemented to empower women heads of households, women with special conditions, and marginalized women, but the consequences of these programs have received less attention. Therefore, the purpose of this database study is to discover and understand the consequences of women’s empowerment in the city of Kerman from the perspective of the participants in these programs.

2. Research Methodology
In the current research, based on the interpretive approach, qualitative methodology was chosen and to answer the goals and questions of the research, the qualitative method of Grounded theory was used, which goes beyond the description, creation, and discovery of a theory, that is, presenting an abstract analytical framework of a process or action or interaction. The participants of this study must all have experienced the considered process and the formulation of this theory can be useful in explaining their practice or provide a framework for future research.
Also, theoretical, targeted, and maximum strategy sampling methods have been used. Therefore, the participants in the research were selected from among the women participating in the empowerment programs of government organizations and non-governmental organizations, and interviews were conducted and semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 21 people until theoretical saturation was reached. In data-based theory, data analysis is done using coding, which are: open coding, axial coding, and selective coding.
 
3. Discussion
Based on the findings of three stages of coding, 18 sub-categories and 5 main categories were extracted. The main categories are: 1. Personal promotion: women feel a positive change in themselves. 2. Life management: After the challenges that come one after another in life, people do not lose their motivation and try to change their mentality and take control of life. 3. Financial prosperity: After being empowered, women have become financially independent and have earned income. 4. Facing difficulties: Some women have faced these problems several times and have been able to overcome them with the help of others. 5. Continuity and creativity: Women have been progressing, they have used different ways and methods for this progress, they are looking to the future, and at the same time, their growth and progress have been gradual and calm.
Core category: According to the main categories, the core category can be presented under the title of “recreation”.
 
4. Conclusion
According to the findings of the research, the consequences of empowerment are personal improvement, life management, financial prosperity, facing difficulties, connection, and creativity. The extracted core category of re-creation means that women have been able to rebuild their lives in the process of empowerment and this change has not only been achieved in terms of well-being, but as activists and agents of change, they have been able to change their personal and social lives. make changes. As in the approach of gender and development as well as Ritzer’s point of view, women are considered activists who are the agents of change, Kabir, Sen, and Lange have considered a prominent role for women’s agency in the process of empowerment and this role They consider it important in the changes that occur in their personal and social life. Azimi, Ali-Beigi, and Pop-Zen’s research (2022) also emphasize the role of women’s agency in empowerment. After the process of empowerment, women grow and improve individually, they find the ability to deal with life’s problems, they find the ability to find reasonable solutions for problems and challenges, and on the other hand, They also find the ability to manage their lives besides this, their financial situation improves. In the research of Chek and Corbett (2024), the importance of self-sufficiency or financial prosperity, which is one of the consequences of women’s empowerment, is emphasized. Also, the research of Noor, Issa, and Noor (2021) also includes strong decision-making power, fewer problems in movement, autonomy, and financial independence among the consequences of women’s empowerment. As in the research of Ehsani-Far, Mohammadi-Ilyasi, and Shahmoradi (2023), empowerment, increasing women’s awareness, finding knowledge about their abilities, and providing a platform for social regeneration of women. Therefore, empowering women can be a step toward the development of society, which is mentioned in the research of Panahi (2023), Yasmi et al. (2023), and Adeel, Saber, and Majid (2023).