Culture and population movements with emphasis on migration trends in Iran and its neighboring countries

Nader Motie Haghshenas, Population Studies and Research Institution in Asia and the Pacific
Mohammad Mirzaie, University of Tehran
Saeedeh Heydari, Independent Researcher

The aim of this paper is to find out the relation between culture and population movements with emphasis on migration trends in Iran and neighboring countries in the first decade of twenty first century. These countries are Azerbaijan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russian Federation, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Iraq, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and Yemen.The main question of this paper is that do countries with different historical and cultural experiences (e.g., Iran, Pakistan and Turkey), and economic growth (e.g., Afghanistan vs. Pakistan) manifest similar patterns of migration change? More specifically, the study attempts to examine Hammel's theory on the relation between demographic changes and cultural traits in Iran and neighboring countries. Research method is documentary analysis. National and international invaluable sources have been used in the present research that are mostly taken from the United Nations Population Division (2011 Revision) and the World Bank (WDI 2011) for the period 1990-2010 and Human Development Report (HDR) for 2011.This study supports Hammel’s theory for those countries which are in parallel human development level.