Feeling of Insecurity and Hope in the Future: Case Study of Tehran

Abstract

In recent decades, Iranian society has experienced rapid socio-economic changes that seriously affect feelings of hope in the future (HF) among social groups, especially in metropolitan areas such as Tehran. This study on HF, which I conducted in 2019, provides a gender analysis of HF for Tehran residents based on selected demographic variables and indicators of socio-economic and psychological insecurities. It also analyzes organizational and public trust by applying the Classification and Regression Trees (CART). I selected the participants from different areas of Tehran: 590 men and 610 women out of a population of 4,839,249 (3,054,715 men and 1,784,534 women) using two-stage stratified sampling with Probability Proportional to Size (PPS), and I completed with them structured questionnaires. The results showed that HF of Tehran residents is correlated with their gender (P-value = 0.033). Thus, two distinct trees with over 60% accuracies were fitted. Three influential variables on men’s HF were age, socio-economic insecurity, and public trust. Young men had higher HF than older ones.

Key Words:

• Classification and regression trees (CART)
• Hope in the future (HF)
• Psychological insecurity
• socio-economic insecurity
• Tehran

Acknowledgments

I am immensely grateful to Professor Mostafa Azkia (Tehran University), who invited me to participate in this special issue, which is in honour of his 40+ plus years of promoting sociological research in Iran. I also would like to express my gratitude to Professor Eric Hooglund (Editor of Middle East Critique) for sharing his pearls of wisdom with me during the editing of this article. I thank my colleagues, Dr. Arezoo Bagheri and Dr. Mahsa Saadati at the National Institute for Population Research in Tehran, each of whom provided insight and expertise that were of great assistance in the research, and especially for their statistical assistance, although they may not agree with all the interpretations/conclusions in this article. In addition, I thank all the anonymous reviewers for their insights.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

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Additional information

Funding

This study was based on a survey, ‘Socio-economic and Demographic Factors Affecting on Hope in the Future in Tehran’ which was supported by the National Institute for Population Research in 2019 with the registered numbers of 20/15283.