Investigating the Relationship between Women’s Social Capital and Their Sense of Security in Ilam City

Sense of security is an integral issue for women considering their increasing presence in the society and their participation in their community. Sense of security can be considered a as stable development, i.e. the realization of the sense of security leads to the development and growth of the community and lack thereof can increase social hazards and complications. Among the most important factors affecting the sense of security is social capital. The main objective of the current study is to investigate the relationship between social capital and sense of security among women in Ilam City. The study uses a survey method, and the analysis unit considered for the study includes all the women with an age of 18 years or higher currently living in Ilam City, which adds up to 60,587 individuals according to the available statistics. The study is carried out in a parallel manner using both qualitative and quantitative methods. For the qualitative method, the snowball methodology is used for reaching theoretical saturation in the form of semi-structured interviews with twenty womene. After extracting the required information from the content of the interviews and coding and classifying them, a questionnaire was developed based on the concepts and factors obtained from the qualitative study to be used in the second phase of the study. The second phase of the study was carried out in a survey form, during which 400 women in Ilam City were selected using multi-stage cluster sampling method to complete the questionnaire voluntarily. In order to measure the validity of the questionnaires, the content validity method was used. In order to measure the reliability of the questionnaire items, Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient was used. The Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient for the questionnaire on social capital was 0.93 and for the questionnaire on sense of security was 0.76. The obtained data were analyzed in SPSS using correlation and regression tests. The results show that the social capital of women in Ilam City with an average score of 52.78 has a significant relationship with their sense of security with an average score of 62.56. Among the various components of social capital, social participation with a mean value of 57.21, social norms with a mean value of 48.2, trust with a mean value of 54.87, and information and awareness with a mean value of 44.1 have a positive medium relationship with sense of security. Finally, it can be said that 0.28 percent of the variable of women’s sense of security is explained by social norms, 0.23 percent of it is explained by social trust, 0.16 percent of it is explained by social participation, and 0.11 percent of it is explained by the variable of information and awareness, respectively. Another result of the study is that there is no difference with regards to the extent of sense of security between various groups in terms of underlying variables, and all the participants are in a homogenous group. Moreover, there was no relationship between underlying variables and sense of security. Qualitative results also show that the narration of women in Ilam city is felt safe by having mental and emotional relaxation inside and outside the house and feel safe in their social, psychological and police experience, but in terms of occupational, political and financial Feel insecure.