Determining Aspects of Non-Agricultural Activities in Rural Areas via Structural Equations Modeling (the Case of the City of Isfahan)

Considering poverty dominating some rural areas caused by the inefficiency of rural economic programs, non-agricultural activities have attracted considerable attention. In such conditions, it is essential to investigate and determine the aspects of non-agricultural activities as one of the patterns of rural employment. This enquiry is an attempt in this connection. This enquiry is a descriptive-analytical survey study employing field methods to collect the information and statistics. A qualitative method and survey questionnaire was distributed to 306 non-agricultural activities practitioner in the study area and the data analyzed by use of factor analysis in SPSS and structural equation modeling in Amos software. The findings of this study reveal that there is a significant positive relationship between the selected fitness aspects and the evaluation of non-agricultural activities in rural employment. In fact, observer aspects (population, employment, social, economic, constitutional-organizational and environmental aspects) have a significant positive relationship to latent variable (conditions of non-agricultural activities). According to the coefficients of structural equations modeling, the social and employment aspects respectively rank first and second in terms of effectiveness in the conditions of non-agricultural activities. Other aspects are in lower ranks.