پژوهشهای راهبردی مسائل اجتماعی ایران (Dec 2020)
A Sociological Study of the Relationship between Religiosity and Awareness of Citizenship Duties and Water Consumption Behavior (Case Study: Married Women over 18 in Isfahan)
Abstract
Introduction The subject of the present study is water consumption behavior. Water consumption behavior is an ecological behavior that includes the environmental attitude of individuals (Satin, 2018) that can be influenced by environmental, social, and cultural factors. Therefore, the present study makes an attempt to investigate the relationship between married women's water consumption behavior with religiosity on the one hand and their awareness of citizenship duties as cultural factors affecting the mental structure and attitude of individuals. Water is in crisis in the world. Based on global estimates, more than one and a half billion people are deprived of access to safe water. Every year, five million people around the world die due to the use of polluted water (Ahmadi, 2014:196). Water shortage is also a serious problem in Iran. Rainfall in Iran is one-third of the global average (Razaghi, 2002). The per capita household water consumption in Iran is 220 liters per day, while its standard in the world is only 75 liters (Ahmadi et al., 2013). This crisis can also be seen in the city of Isfahan. In Isfahan, water consumption behavior (according to the statistics of this city in 1998) shows that on average about 80% of the total water consumption is related to the household sector (Isfahan Municipality). The reason why in this study housewives were selected as the case study is due to their role in the education and socialization of children. As seen in Parsons's view, the family has a duty to give social identity to children (Parsons & Bales, 1955). Given the water scarcity crisis, the aim of this study is to examine the behavior of water consumption in relation to religiosity and awareness of civic duties to answer the question of why religiosity and awareness of civic duties can have the greatest impact on water consumption behavior. Materials and Methods This research is a quantitative survey study. The main technique used in the data collection stage was a researcher-made standardized questionnaire. The statistical population of the study consisted of married women in Isfahan comprising about 619,091 people. In the present study, the multi-stage random sampling was used. For sampling, Lin’s (1976) Table and 4% error were used based on which 384 samples were selected for research. In this study, the dependent variable was water consumption behavior measured by a researcher-made questionnaire. The independent variables of this research were religiosity and awareness of citizenship duties. The Glock and Stark Questionnaire (1965) was used to measure religiosity and a researcher-made questionnaire was used to measure the awareness of citizenship duties. In this study, confirmatory factor analysis was used to evaluate the structural validity of the questionnaire. The reliability of the questionnaire was obtained using Cronbach Alpha and Kuder Richardson code. Kuder Richardson’s code for water consumption behavior was 0.71, Cronbach Alpha for religiosity was .0822. The sample was aware of 82.7% of citizenship duties. In the present study, SPSS 24 software was used for the statistical analysis of the data. Discussion of Results and Conclusions The findings of this study showed that both religiosity and citizenship duties had an effect on the water consumption behavior of married women. However, citizenship duties had a greater impact on water consumption behavior. Accordingly, religiosity as a traditional culture shaping the attitude of individuals has a significant and direct effect on the water consumption behavior of married women, during which by increasing the level of religiosity, women behave more economically in water consumption. Based on the results, it can be said that religion as a meaningful system is effective in people's lives (Berger, 2016: 72). Along with religiosity is the awareness of the duties of citizenship that can affect the behavior of individuals as a modern system of meaning in the form of a citizen. The phenomenon of citizenship refers to the process in which the equalization of the rights and duties of citizenship of adults is realized in modern society. Because of this equalization that housewives strive for, it can be directly related to water consumption behavior. According to Marshall, the duties of citizenship are individualistic, but the duties are left to individuals as consumers, not actors (1969: 141). This means that housewives look at water consumption behavior as a task that is an individual dimension, and in return for their duty to others, they feel obligated to save water consumption behavior. In addition, water consumption behavior has led housewives to pay more attention to citizenship duties. The results show that the awareness of civic duties by a factor of Standard beta of 0.355 has the greatest effect on water consumption behavior. This might show that religion creates a semantic system by which one finds a normative basis for one's behavior. Other concepts such as the awareness of citizenship rights can be effective as one of the components of people's attitudes in this regard.
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