The Desire to Migrate Among Young Iranians; A Qualitative Study on Future Images

Migration is one of those multidimensional phenomena which requires a variety of interdisciplinary approaches and methods to be studies and perceived. Reviewing the literature related to migration illustrates the fact that the theories explaining migration have been developed mostly around the macroeconomic issues and personal needs theories. However, if migration or the tendency to migrate is considered as a decision to take action, that decision of course arises from an image or variety of images of the future. People migrate in order to fulfill a desirable image of the future or ban an undesirable one. Accordingly, we can study images of the future in order to identify subjective and intersubjective parameters affecting migration. Aiming this, the present study explored the images the young people willing to migrate had about the future in a qualitative tradition using semi- structured interviews. The study was to investigate the phenomenon of migration regarding the construction of mental images related to the future. The data gathered from 23 interviews were put into theme analysis when the qualitative saturation was gained. The results showed that three major themes namely 1) dystopic images of the origin; 2) following a pandemic for leaving the country; and 3) the attractions of the destination are the strong images motivating migration. Among them, the dystopic images of the origin has the most significant share