Evidence from predictors of rural youth’s migration intentions in agricultural communities: the Fars province, Iran

Abstract

In order to benefit of youths’ abilities and capabilities in agricultural and rural sustainable development, it is necessary that they select the rural areas for living. But the present trend shows their widespread departure from rural areas. This research aimed to identify factors influencing the migration intentions of rural youth for preventing their increasing migration in rural communities. The causal model of effective factors on rural youth’s migration intentions showed that variables such as access to extension activities, agricultural knowledge and residential satisfaction had the negative impact and the subjective expectations had the positive impact on the young’s migration intentions among individual factors. In the family factors, household’s size, impact intensity of drought and number of household’s migrants had the positive effect and the household’s farm size and the level of the technology used in agriculture had the negative impact on the youth’s migration intentions. Also, increasing of the interpersonal ties and social participation caused decreasing the migration intentions. Two moderator variables of study including annual household income and the future status of agriculture had negative effect on youth’s migration intentions. Generally, a combination of individual, household and socio-psychological factors affects the migration intentions of rural youth.

Keywords:

• migration intentions
• rural youth
• household
• agricultural communities
• Iran

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the editor, Professor S. Irudaya Rajan, as well as anonymous referees for valuable comments and suggestions.