Explaining the role of personal characteristics affecting the employment of higher education female graduates (Case study: agriculture and natural resources university of Ramin-Ahvaz)

Human resources play a crucial role in Iran’s economic growth. Men make
up the majority of the economically active population; however, there has been a surge in female employment since 1995, with a higher pace in the past recent decades. In the early current century, women in more privileged education groups were more likely to work for pay. Education and employment experience increased women’s potential earnings, making the opportunity cost of staying home greater. They may also be indicators of more interest in and commitment to paid work, as well as access to more interesting jobs. Probably for all these reasons, studies have long found a positive effect of education on employment. On the other hand, nowadays employment status of higher educated women is considered to be a major issue through developing countries in the world. In addition, Iran’s agriculture sector is faced with the shortage of qualified and powerful workforce, since there is not a self-employment sprit, and thus most of the agriculture female graduates are unemployed. The current study aims to explain the role of personal characteristics affecting female graduates’ employment in agriculture and natural resources university of Ramin. Some specific objectives of this study are as follows: 1) Identification of the personal, occupational, and educational characteristics of female graduates in agriculture and natural resources university of Ramin; 2) Prioritizing barriers of female graduates’ employment in agriculture sector; 3) Comparing female graduates with each other based on occupational status and graduation time; 4) Regression analysis of effectiveness of psychological and sociological variables on employment of female graduates in agriculture sector. The study uses a descriptive-correlative method. The independent variables include personal characteristics which are categorized as psychological and sociological characteristics, and dependent variable constitutes graduates’ employment measured on an interval scale. Data collection is carried out through questionnaires and the reliability of which is calculated by Cronbach Alpha coefficient to stand at 83%. The population is female graduates of agriculture and natural resources university of Ramin who graduated within the period of 2005 to 2008, out of which 140 are selected through stratified sampling. The data is analyzed using the computer software 'Statistical Package for the Social Science' (SPSS) program. The responses are coded before being transferred into the SPSS format. The research results show that 41% of female graduates in the studied university are unemployed. Meanwhile 68% of female graduates, who are employed, state that their field of study is proportionate with their occupations. Based on the results 58.6% of graduates are employed and more than half of them are working in public sector and the remaining are in private sector or self-employed. According to the results of the study, limited job opportunities for women in agriculture, lack of governmental support for agricultural graduates, and lack of communication between agricultural faculties and agricultural sector are considered as important barriers to employment of female graduates in agricultural sector. Also based on regression analysis, self confidence is the most effective variable affecting the employment of female graduates. So that by increasing self confidence in female graduates, their employment is influenced positively and significantly. According to step by step regression, this variable along with seven other variables named financial possibilities, independence demanding and free hand, occupational experience, risk-taking, age, education, and initiating could specify 56.5% of changes of dependent variable of the research.