A new report released by the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare shows inter- and intra-provincial migrations as well as migrations from abroad stood at 636,000 in the fiscal 2019-20.
The number declined by 10.5% from 711,000 people in the fiscal 2018-19 and 6.9% from 684,000 people in the fiscal 2017-18.
In the fiscal 2019-20, 533,000 migrants were of working age, registering a 9.8% and 5.1% decline from 590,000 people in the fiscal 2018-19 and 561,000 migrants in the fiscal 2017-18 respectively.
The proportion of working age migrants from the total number of migrations had an upward trend and reached 83.7% in the fiscal 2019-20 from 82.1% in the fiscal 2017-18.
The proportion of male migrants from the total number of migrants in the period under review declined and reached 55.2% in the fiscal 2019-20 from 58.7% in the fiscal 2017-18. On the contrary, the proportion of female migrants increased and reached 44.8% in the fiscal 2019-20 from 41.3% in the fiscal 2017-18.
The proportion of female migrants of working age from the total number of migrants had an upward trend and reached 44.1% in the fiscal 2019-20 from 41.3% in the fiscal 2017-18, but the proportion of their male counterparts had a downward trend and reached 55.9% in the fiscal 2019-20 from 58.7% in the fiscal 2017-18.
In the fiscal 2019-20, 48.7% (259,000) of total migrants in their working age had intra-provincial migration, 48.3% (257,000) inter-provincial migration and 3% (16,000) of those in their working age migrated from outside the country.
From 533,000 migrants in their working age in the fiscal 2019-20, 38.3% (204,000) were employed in the destination province, 13.2% (71,000) were unemployed and 48.4% (258,000) were economically inactive.
From 204,000 of the employed migrants, 47.8% had migrated intra-provincially and 49.7 belonged to inter-provincially.
From 71,000 unemployed migrants, 41.8% has migrated intra-provincially and 55.5% inter-provincially.
In the fiscal 2019-20, Yazd Province with 82.2%, Alborz Province with 76.6%, Semnan Province with 74.8%, Qom Province with 72%, Markazi Province with 68% and Tehran Province with 65.9% had the proportion working age inter-provincial migrations respectively.
Qom with 90%, Yazd with 80.9%, Alborz with 74.4%, Zanjan with 73.9%, Semnan with 70.3% and Hamedan with 66.3% saw the highest proportion of employed inter-provincial migrations respectively in the fiscal 2019-20.
From 24.35 million employed people in Iran, only 0.4% were inter-provincial migrants, which means they had resided in the province where the census took place for less than a year. This proportion stood at 0.4% in the fiscal 2018-19 and 0.5% in the fiscal 2017-18.
Qazvin Province, Gilan Province and Hamedan Province with about 1% had the highest proportion of employed inter-provincial migrants.
Semnan with 100%, Alborz with 82.5%, Qom with 82.2%, Gilan with 80.2%, Ardabil with 76.9% and Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari with 76.5% had the highest proportion of unemployed inter-provincial migrants.
In other words, all the unemployed people who had migrated to Semnan Province at the time of the census were looking for a job.
Of the 2,898 unemployed people in the fiscal 2019-20, 1.4% were migrants. This share stood at 0.8% in the fiscal 2018-19 and 1.2% in the fiscal 2017-18.
Qazvin Province with 4.0%, Gilan Province with 3.8% and Ardabil Province with 3.5% had the highest proportion of unemployed inter-provincial migrants.
Except for Tehran Province, inter-provincial migrations in other Iranian provinces took place from neighboring provinces.
*** Tehran Suburbanization, Population Growth
Residents of the capital city, Tehran, are increasingly migrating to suburban areas, according to Deputy Interior Minister Mehdi Jamalinejad.
"Unfortunately, we are suffering from the so-called 'metropolitan inundation syndrome' as a result of mass migrations from villages to cities, and from smaller cities to metropolises," he was quoted as saying by Mehr News Agency.
"These migrations reached a peak in the 2001-11 decade," he added.
Citing data gathered in the last National Census in the fiscal 2016-17, the official said Tehran is experiencing reverse migration.
Tehran has faced many challenges in recent years, including pollution and traffic. Due to its political, economic, educational and other advantages, the capital city has always attracted Iranians from other provinces.
Migration to Tehran to work, study, or live temporarily or permanently has become a commonplace phenomenon over the years has led to a growth in the city's population while giving rise to a series of environmental issues in the process. However, statistics show the parallel case of reverse migration, i.e., from Tehran to other provinces.
According to the Statistical Center of Iran, the National Population and Housing Census in the fiscal 2016-17 shows a total of 350,632 people migrated from Tehran to other provinces between the fiscal 2011-12 and 2016-17. The provinces of Alborz, Gilan and Mazandaran were the top destinations for migrants from Tehran.
A total of 516,922 people migrated to Tehran during the same period. A majority of migrants came from Alborz, Lorestan, Hamedan and Khorasan Razavi provinces.
Tehran's population density is 969 per square kilometers, which is 20 times higher than the national average. With a population of about 13.26 million people (up from 8.15 million registered in the previous census conducted in 2011-12), the capital city has a 16.5% share in Iran’s total population. The city is home to 41.9% of the country’s urban population, according to the latest census.
Although the number of people coming to Tehran surpassed those who leave the city during the period under review, reverse migration is seemingly on the rise amid growing environmental problems in the capital city and saturation of opportunities there.
In fact, air pollution and fear of earthquake have been cited as the main reason encouraging people to leave Tehran.
Tehran Province's population is expected to reach 20 million in five years. Tehran is the 25th most populous city in the world and its population is increasing annually.
“Between 200,000 and 250,000 people are added to Tehran's population each year,” Masoud Shafiei, the head of the Management and Planning Organization of Tehran Province, was quoted as saying by ILNA.
This increase in population includes immigrants from other cities and villages as well as foreign countries.
Latest data released by the Statistical Center of Iran show the population of capital city Tehran increased by 6.6% over five years from the fiscal year ending March 2012 to the year ending March 2017.
SCI estimated that 8,693,706 people and 2,903,435 households lived in Tehran in the year ending March 2017.
Of the 8,693,706 people who lived in Tehran, 17.4% were between 0 and 14 years old, 74.1% between 15 and 64 years old and 8.4% were 65 years or older.
The size of household reduced by 0.1 people to stand at three members per household in the year ending March 2017 compared with the year ending March 2012.
Of 2,903,435 households living in Tehran, 84.2% (or 2,445,016 households) had male breadwinners and 15.8% (or 458,419 households) had female breadwinners, suggesting that one out of six households had women as the head of the family.
The relative frequency of households with women as the householder has increased by 0.4% from 15.4% to 15.8% over five years.
New migrants (those who moved to Tehran from March 2012-17) accounted for 4.7% or 404,996 people of Tehran’s population in the year ending March 2017.
The findings of the National Population and Housing Census also show 94.8% or 7,638,837 of people living in Tehran were literate and 5.1% or 414,162 were illiterate in the year ending March 2017.
Out of 2,888,713 households living in apartments or houses in the city, 1,432,136 (49.6%) were owners of residential units and 1,208,710 households (41.8%) were renters.
About 87.4% of the residential units in Tehran in the year ending March 2017 were apartments and 12.7% were other housing properties.
