The Effect of the International Immigrants' Remittance on the Life Quality of the Southern Residents of Fars Province

Authors

• Mahboubeh Namdar ¹
• Aliakbar Anabestani ²
• Mohammad Rahim Rahnama ²
• Saied Reza Akbarian Rounizi ³

¹ PhD Student of Geography & Rural Planning, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.

² Professor in Geography Department, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.

³ : Associate Prof. in Geography Department, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

Abstract

Abstract
           Nowadays, the international immigrants' remittance can be considered as one of the biggest and most sustainable financial and investment aspects in the developing countries, which by directing and utilizing correctly in the other sectors of the economy, sociocultural, physical, and etc., this can have a significant effect on the development and the improvement of the life quality indicators of the inhabitants of the origin regions. The present study, aimed at analyzing and examining the effect of the international immigrants' remittance of the work force on the life quality of some residents of southern Fars province, is practical and developmental in the terms of purpose, and is descriptive and analytical in the terms of matter and method. Documentary and field methods have been used to collect information. In this regard, questionnaires were arranged in four indicators based on Likert scale and distributed randomly among citizens. Statistical population of the study consisted of 18141 households from of 17 villages and 3 cities of the region, which of these households, 314 families have been selected as the sample size based on the Cochran formula. The analysis of the questionnaire was carried out using descriptive and analytical statistical methods including the tests of T, Pearson, multivariate regression and path analysis. The results show that there is a meaningful and direct relationship between the immigrants' remittance and the life quality of the residents of the region. Also, the results of multivariate regression and path analysis indicate that the immigrants' remittance has a strong positive relation with the life quality by a coefficient of 0.830; and the index of the career and income opportunities has the most effects on the improvement of the life quality indicators by the impact factor of 0.573.
 
Key words: Remittance, international immigrants, life quality, work force, southern residents of Fars province.
 



 


 
 



 
Extended Abstract
Introduction:
          Nowadays international remittances can be considered as one of the largest and most sustainable financial and investment dimension in developing countries, which can have a significant effect on the economic, cultural, social, physical and other sectors. Improvement in the development and fulfilling the quality of life indicators for residents of the source regions. In Iran, people in the southern parts of the country, including residents of parts of the south of the Persian Gulf as the name of Larestan, have been sending large numbers of migrants to the oil-rich southern Gulf States since the mid-twentieth century. Labor immigrants send a vast amount of their financial capital each year to their house and place of origin. These remittances, regardless of family and personal expenses, are utilized in different ways to develop and improve the quality of life of residents in the area. It is good to note that most of the remittances without any pre-determined plans or purposes and lack of effective viewpoint and managing the capital allocation on the other hand, mainly in certain sectors such as religion is practiced (construction of mosques and Hosseinieh, etc.). This has resulted in some of these areas, despite the large remittances, deprivation and shortages. In this context, this study follows to respond the question of how much the remittances could bring about changes in the quality of life of the inhabitants of the area in economic, socio-cultural and physical-environmental aspects. And which has been the most affected by remittances since the quality of life of the residents in the study area?
Methodology:
         The present study, is practical and developmental in the terms of purpose, and is descriptive and analytical in the terms of matter and method. Documentary and field methods have been used to collect information. In this regard, questionnaires were arranged in four indicators based on Likert scale and distributed randomly among citizens. Statistical population of the study consisted of 18141 households from of 17 villages and 3 cities of the region, which of these households, 314 families have been selected as the sample size based on the Cochran formula. Also, reliability of the questionnaire was estimated with Cronbach's alpha 648.0. The analysis of the questionnaire was carried out using descriptive and analytical statistical methods including the tests of T, Pearson, multivariate regression and path analysis. The variables investigated in this study included immigrants ' assets as independent variables and sustainable economic development-management as a variable.
Discussion and Findings:
         Due to the findings, 84.2% of the respondents are men and 15.8% are women, out of which 78.7% are employed, 10.5% are unemployed, 2.2% have other jobs. Regarding the investment status of persons, 69.9% of respondents mentioned that they had some forms of investment in their place of origin. Regarding the place of investment, more than 50% of the respondents noted that they make investments in addition to their place of residence in the surrounding cities and other areas, due to the lack of necessary infrastructure and suitable market for investment in the place of residence. Pearson test was utilized to evaluate the correlation between independent variables with other indicators of dependent variable. According to the results of the Pearson test in cases where the probability value is less than 0.05, the hypothesis that there is no significant relationship between independent variable and dependent variables is rejected, that is, between remittances sent by international migrants with improved economic, social and quality indicators. There is a significant physical-environmental relationship. Therefore, it can be mentioned that by increasing the remittances to the region, the quality of life indicators also will be increased.
Conclusion:
         In this study, three components of job and income investment, social knowledge and accessibility and quality of access component were surveyed to assess the impacts of remittances on residents' quality of life in the region. According to the data collected from the studied samples, three statistical tests, one sample t-test, correlation and regression were used to determine the results of the study. The results show that there is a meaningful and direct relationship between the immigrants' remittance and the life quality of the residents of the region. Also, the results of multivariate regression and path analysis indicate that the immigrants' remittance has a strong positive relation with the life quality by a coefficient of 0.830; and the index of the career and income opportunities has the most effects on the improvement of the life quality indicators by the impact factor of 0.573. But in general, all of the relevant components have positive effects, with little or no intensity, and therefore, it can be argued that remittances have positive impacts on promoting and improving the quality of life indicators, such as increasing resident income, improving access quality, reducing poverty and unemployment, increasing the participation in public utilities, etc. in the area under study, and if these investments are planned and directed to the required segments of society, it could exacerbate these developmental effects and provides the aspects of growth of this area especially rural areas and less developed cities.

Keywords

• Remittance
• international immigrants
• life quality
• work force
• southern residents of Fars province

20.1001.1.22516735.1398.9.36.6.5

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