The structure of human relationships in the family and emigration tendency

adopted here is Social Distance Theory. According to this view, the more social distance among people the less they influence each other. From this viewpoint an increase in social distance among kinsfolk leads to a decrease in mutual influence and this, in turn, affect the emigration tendency. This study is aimed at the investigation of the relationship between kinship solidarity and emigration tendency among educated people. The theoretical framework Based on this theoretical foundation, we have suggested that 4 main variables, the size of kinship network, the strength of kinship relationship, the frequency of kinship relationship, and the profundity of kinship relationship, have negative influences on educated people’s tendency to emigrate. A sample of social sciences and electrical engineering students of the University of Tehran has been surveyed and the empirical data have been analysed both in description and explanation levels. The results indicate that all of the above mentioned variables affect emigration tendency negatively and significantly. Also, our findings suggest that, generally speaking, a negative correlation between the above independent variables and dependent variable of emigration tendency is predictable. In particular, two variables (the strength of kinship relationship, and the profundity of kinship relationship) explain 35% of variances of dependent variable of the tendency to emigrate.