A Comparative Study on the Quality of Life During the Migration of Rural Communities Toward Suburban Villages (Case Study: Tabadkan Dehestan in Mashhad County)

IntroductionQuality of life is one of the most important issues that our world is facing today. Human future will be based on a better understanding of factors that affect the quality of human life. In discussions about life quality, living is not the only goal, but its quality is also important. Currently, inappropriate living conditions in rural settlements have considerably lowered the quality of life. Obviously, the villagers hope for better living conditions, so that they leave their villages toward more desirable habitats. During this population flow and due to the lack of sufficient financial sources, rural communities logically move to suburban areas. Suburban villages of Tabadkan district as the entrance gates of North East of Mashhad have received important parts of immigrants. Since today, most migrations are performed to achieve a better quality of life; thus, the main research question arises: whether the quality of life among rural people living in suburban villages has changed compared with those living in rural areas?
Theoretical FrameworkAccording to Fenwick, Naglieri, and Brown (1996), quality of life has a social concept, and has no meaning in itself. In 2000, a model was proposed to illustrate the concept of life quality. This model has generally focused on three realms of society, environment, and economy. The advantage of this model is that the contrast between areas have clearly been defined, and there is an image expressed form different concepts of livability, life quality, and stability (permanent) interacting with each other. In the present work, according to recent studies, the quality of life has been examined in the areas of socio-cultural, environmental, and economic. In a theoretical approach, life quality can be classified into two categories: descriptive and explanatory. Descriptive studies review the association between quality of life and variables such as gender, age, and education, and their central issue is the quality of life based on background variables, but explanatory studies are trying to understand the factors affecting the quality of life, and are divided into batch-oriented and structuralist approaches. It should be noted that in this research the explanatory studies have been considered with an emphasis on the structuralist approach.
MethodologyA descriptive-analytical method with comparative approach was used as the research method. The "pseudo panel" research project was used, due to the fact that the quality of life of rural households cannot be followed over time (before movement toward suburban villages) and consequently due to the lack of data in this area. The unit of analysis was the "migrant's rural households" of the suburban villages of Tabadkan district. The questionnaire was conducted in order to compare the quality of life of the rural households before and after migration. The quality of life was also examined in Likert scale, with 17 components and 56 variables in view of economic, social, and physical aspects. According to Cronbach's alpha coefficients, the items designed to measure the variables had internal correlation with each other.
Results & DiscussionGiven the normal distribution of characteristics, paired sample t-test was used to determine the presence or absence of a difference in the mean value of parameters and aspects of life quality. Due to the level of significance (sig≤0.05) in the paired sample t-test, the mean values of all components of social, economic and structural parameters were found to be significantly different. Paired sample t-test results, in view of life quality, showed that except for the social dimension of quality of life, the difference between the mean values of economic and structural dimensions and the structure of life quality were significant. On the economic side of the quality of life, the average increased from 2.10 to 2.40 after migration. Structurally, the mean value increased from 2.25 to 2.55 after migration. It can be seen that a physical and economic improvement has happened after migration toward suburban villages. In general, the quality of life of rural migrants improved with a significant increase in the mean value from 2.43 to 2.58.
Conclusions & SuggestionsWidespread poverty, rapid population growth, unemployment, migration, urban marginalization, etc. were found to be due to the lack of quality of life in rural areas. Predictably, in order to achieve the desired level of life quality, rural people migrate to towns and urban areas. Although suburban villages are less developed and often face several challenges such as environmental pollution, etc., the results showed that the quality of life of migrants improved after migration. This reflects the poor situation in less-developed rural areas. Perpetuation of inequalities, lack of job opportunities, and poor quality of life in rural communities have revealed the necessity of achieving different but possible ways in planning and management.