According to World Bank data released, Iranian emigration rate in the 1960s and 1970s (decades before the victory of the Islamic Revolution) has been remarkable, given the population of Iran in those years, and has never been close to zero.

According to the information center of national elites foundation, it is enough to take a brief look at the content published in the field of emigration to find out the volume and variety of unscientific and non-constructive claims, content and commentary in this field thousands of times more than scientific content, quantitative and qualitative statistical research, documentation and reporting. The field was produced and disseminated around the contexts and motives of different types of migration, its effects, opportunities and threats to Iranian society.

Therefore, it is aimed to evaluate and respond to the claims in this area by providing continuous content. In this regard and according to a published claimed: “in August 1965, results of evaluation of emigration carried out by the United Nations show that Iran was ranked fifth to the last on the related table”. Another claim expresses that: “this evaluation was republished 10 years later, showing no change in the rate of Iran, and emigration rate of Iran was near zero.”

The issue was introduced when data on immigrants from countries became available on the UN website in 1990. Data related to previous decades were extracted by the global bank. Referring to the data of the global database showed that Iran was ranked 74^th out of 232 countries in the 70s, meaning that 8.1 individuals per 1000 people were living abroad. According to the data of global database, the number of Iranian emigrants was 232,811. In other words, 8.1 per 1000 people lived abroad.

According to the United Nations, 0.51 per 1000 population of Iran lived abroad during 1970-1975. It means that seven per 1000 people lived in other countries. This rate is obtained from dividing the difference of input to output emigrants. We cannot precisely determine the rate of Iranian emigrants since the input emigrants have been considered as well.

“Statics show that Iranians are not willing to immigrate to other countries”.

Meanwhile, according to the data published by the global bank, the number of Iranian emigrants has never been near zero. In 1960s and 1970s, the number of Iranian emigrants was 171,478 and 232,811 people, which is a considerable rate regarding the population of Iran at that time.

There is a significant difference between tendency to immigrate and the recorded statistics on this issue. Tendency is a mental desire while several steps must be taken to actually immigrate to another country.

In the end, it is noteworthy that with regard to the fact that the number of Iranian emigrants recorded in the 60s and 70s was considerable, there was a higher tendency to immigrate at that time.

Source: “Iranian Gate Emigration Case”