Provincial Differences in Human Capital in the Context of Iranian Demographic Transition

In different provinces of Iran, age structure changes have almost similarly led to the emergence of a population that are at the age of economic activity, shape the future demographic phenomena and require a reinforcement of human capital to participate in the development process. This study, with a descriptive-analytical approach, performed a secondary analysis on the data related to 10 different provinces of the country to show the status of human capital indicators. The results showed that in addition to the underdevelopment of some provinces (such as Sistan and Baluchistan, Kurdistan and Lorestan), there is also a significant provincial dispersal in terms of human capital indicators in education, health, workforce and employment, as well as enabling environment, that is, the human capital indicators are more accumulated in some developed provinces (such as Isfahan, Semnan, Eastern Azerbaijan, and Mazandaran). These results highlight the need to strengthen the human capital of potentially active populations in low-income provinces and border areas on the one hand, and to engage them in the development process with the aim of sustaining the young population and promoting the developmental indicators to the extent of the developed provinces, as well as increasing the quality of population to sustain future population processes on the other hand