Investigation of Rural-Urban Migration as the Consequence of Regional and International Wars (Case of Study: Ahwaz City as the Empirical Experiment of Immigration in Iran)

Abstract

Khuzestan province and other western provinces of the country have been mostly affected by the impacts of the imposed war of Iraq against Iran and due to this impact have experienced special changes. As one of these changes, we could mention the phenomenon of the migration. These areas have experienced different forms of migrations such as exterior, interior, return migration and even the acceptance of foreign immigrants. These circumstances have been exhibited in a special form in Khuzestan as the main center of the imposed war and Ahwaz as the major capital of war making. Therefore, research and study related to the field of social and economic problems yields precise experiences to the country's policy makers. In this study as the result of the vast scope of social and economic problems, we have focused on the immigrations occurred in Ahwaz and especially the immigrants entered into this city. To this end, we have used the descriptive and analytical method and the main focus is on the views of immigrants settled in Ahwaz suburb and the villages in this region. In order to analyze the view of immigrants and villagers, a sample group composed of 761 people was selected according to Morgan's table. Among the group 381 people were family guardians in village and 380 were the guardians in the city. The result of this study shows that the imposed war, Iraq's attack to Kuwait and the U.S. military operations against Iraq have directly affected the rate and type of village- city immigrations. Moreover, the disorders have caused more immigration by muddling the area's tribal structure.