Tropentag, September 17 - 19, 2013 in Stuttgart-Hohenheim "Agricultural development within the rural-urban continuum"

An Empirical Assessment of Rural Youth Residents' Intention Toward Migration

¹Khuzestan Ramin Agricultural and Natural Resources University, Dept. of Agricultural Extension and Education, Iran
²Institute of Applied Scientific Higher Education Jihad-e- Keshavarzi, Agricultural Education, Iran

Abstract

While migration is a normal element of population growth in most societies, Rural- urban migration is a most important issue between scientist and practitioner in Iran. On the one hand, rural- urban migration accounts for over half the growth of most Iranian cities. On the other hand, this movement has many negative effects in rural area, including, declining in labour power for agriculture production. It has become common practice to blame this decline on the migration of young people due to structural limitations (e.g. education and employment). This research examines the psychological factors influencing rural youth decisions-intentions to migrate in Khouzestan province in south of Iran. As such the aim of this study is to provide empirical data about Youth' intention toward migration. This study applied satisfaction as the mediating variable and combined theory of planned behaviour to develop the migration intention behavioural model for Iran. As a part of this study, 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). Youth samples selected through a multi-stage; stratified random sampling from two groups (who are well educated and who are not well educated). The questionnaires were answered directly by randomly sampled youth in two groups. A total of 200 valid questionnaires were analyzed. Attitude affected satisfaction directly. It can predict 31% of the variance in satisfaction with living at rural area. While subjective norm and perceived behavioural control were not a significant predictor of satisfaction. Furthermore regression revealed that satisfaction can explained 30% of the variance in intention toward living at rural area.

Keywords: Iran, migration, rural youth

Contact Address: Amine Lotfian, Khuzestan Ramin Agricultural and Natural Resources University, Dept. of Agricultural Extension and Education, Honarestan, Hamedan, Iran, e-mail: lotfianamineyahoo.com