Abstract
In recent years, the importance of handicrafts has been surged due to their cultural and financial values. The small scale industries, including handicrafts can play a major role in the development of the economy of both developed and the developing countries. Egyptian women work to share the burdens of everyday life because of their husband's death, illness or divorce. Therefore, the current study focused on the study of some small industries carried out by women in Societies Productive Families to meet the daily needs of their families.
The study was conducted in three Egyptian governorates (Cairo, Giza, and Fayoum) because they included Societies Productive Families (SPF), concerned with small industries which include handicrafts (leather bags, ceramic flowers, crochet, embroidery, itamin products and palm leaves products). The sample included 187 women who were chosen from 7 Societies Productive Families in three Egyptian Governorates.
The obtained results showed that about three quarter of women sample aged less than 40 years, 60.4 % of them were married, more than half of sample (54%) finished intermediate institute, less half of them (42.4 %) were housewife. The majority of the family types (85 %) were simple, about half of sample had 4 to 5 persons (51.9 %). The highest percentage of socio-economic levels was above medium and medium (60.4%) in the three governorates. The highest percentage of small industries existed in Cairo, Giza and Fayoum represented crochet, being 36.3 %, 53.6 % and 43.1% of the sample, respectively. The main problems facing families concerning small industries included the low return from the industries (87.7 %), the shortage of good raw materials at reasonable prices (64.2 %) and the rise in prices of raw materials (62.6 %). More than half of the households (57.2%) were affected by the fact that the associations receive a high percentage of profits (15-20%). Statistical analysis showed that the age of women was positively correlated with the husband's age, while negatively correlated with both women's education and socio-economic level. There were highly significant correlations between the education of women and each of the socio-economic level and the husband's education. Highly significant correlations between women's education and each of socio-economic level and husband's education were found. Women's education was negatively correlated with family size. A Highly significant correlation was observed between the occupation of women and the occupation of husbands. Husband's education was positively correlated with husband's occupation and socioeconomic level, while negatively correlated with family size.