Relationship between Identity Reflection and Tendency to Migrate from Iran: Study of Higher Education Students in Tehran State Universities

In recent years “emigration” from Iran has become a common behavior among a lot of young specialists and students. According to statistics, Iran is among countries that have high and increasing rate of trained human resource migration. Considering the importance of young skilled human resource role in national development, especially in the socio-historical opportunity called "demographic window", the reason of migration is a significant and important subject to study.
Taking up structure-agency approach, current research studies meaning system changes, identity changes and identity reflection in context of national and transnational changes in order to explore deeper reasons of influential factors on migration among higher education students. The method of this research is survey and it has 272 samples from 4 state universities in Tehran which are selected through Cochran formula, using cluster sampling. The outcomes of statistical analysis showed that about 41.5% of students, have a great tendency to emigrate and increase in reflexivity resulted in increase in migration tendency and vice versa, increased possibility of practical realization of reflexive identity resulted in its decrease. There was a significantly meaningful negative relationship between feeling ontological security as an intermediate variable, with a tendency to emigration (the dependent variable). Based on the results of multiple regression, the following variables have the greatest impact on attitude to emigration: practical reflexive identity, ontological security, marital status, employment status which have been proposed as the predictor variables for the dependent variable. According to the theoretical approach, possibility of practical realization of reflexive identity, completes its mental reflexivity process and finally, creates the ontological security and feeling safe positioning in the living space. Therefore, in order to control the tendency of educated young people to emigrate and positively confront escape attempts, the feasibility of realizing the practical dimensions of reflexive identity should be considered. There also should be serious activities on organizing and improving life status in terms of marriage conditions and securing employment.