Analysis of Income in Rural Areas of Iran

Rural economy, as one of the most important dimensions of sustainable development of rural settlements, depends on several factors. Income is one of the key components affecting the sustainable development of rural economy; therefore, an acceptable level of it can influence the well-being and comfort of the villagers. Considering the many challenges of the rural society of Iran, investigating their income as well as identifying the factors affecting the income level of the rural society can prepare the ground for policy-making and planning to increase the income level and consequently develop rural economy. Therefore, the aim of this quantitative and applied research is to investigate and spatially analyze the level of income and identify the key factors influencing it in rural areas of Iran. The required data were obtained from Iran Statistics Center in 2022, and SPSS and ArcGIS software were used for data analysis. The spatial presentation of the income level in the provinces of Iran showed that most border rural areas were deprived or very deprived. The results of correlation between the level of income and the independent variables showed that the four variables of having welfare infrastructure, literacy percentage, the percentage of employees in the service sector and employees regularly working 49 hours and more had a statistically significant positive relationship with the income level of villagers and the three variables of the percentage of employees in the agricultural sector, the percentage of rural population and distance from the center (capital) had a statistically significant negative relationship with the dependent variable. The results of multiple regression showed that the two variables of having welfare infrastructure and the percentage of employees in the service sector with regression coefficients of 0.615 and 0.512, respectively, are included in the final fitted model (by explaining 63.6% of the income variance of the rural society of Iran), and they influence explaining the variance of income.