An Empirical Assessment of Rural Youth Residents’ Intention Toward Migration

While migration is a normal element of population dynamics in most societies, in Iran, rural-urban migration is a particular concern of both social scientists and policy makers. On the one hand, rural urban migration accounts for over half the growth of most Iranian cities. On the other hand, this movement is often cited as having negative effects on rural area, including a declining supply of agricultural labour. It is become common to blame rural-urban migration among young people on factors such as education and employment opportunities. This research examines the psychological factors influencing the intentions and decisions of rural young people to migrate in Khouzestan province in the south of Iran. This study used the theory of planned behaviour and the concept of to develop a migration intention model for Iran. A questionnaire was developed using the latent variables of attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, behavioural intention, satisfaction and youth personal characteristics (age, educate, etc). Samples of young people were identified through a multi-stage, stratified random sampling strategy from two groups (young people who are ‘well educated’ and those who were not). A total of 200 valid questionnaires were analyzed. Attitude affected satisfaction directly, accounting for 31% of the variance in satisfaction among the sample of young people. On the other hand, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control were not a significant predictor of satisfaction. Furthermore, regression analysis revealed that satisfaction can explained 30% of the variance in intention toward living in a rural area

Rural Youth, migration, Iran