The Impact of Internal Migration on the Sex Ratio of Iranian Counties in the 2011 to 2016 Period; Application of Geographically Weighted Regression

Immigration, which is a selective socioeconomic process, is one of the components of population change that can change the gender ratio at the origins and destinations of migration. This study aimed to investigate the effect of internal migration on the gender ratio of Iranian counties using geographically weighted regression (GWR). For this purpose, the data from the censuses of 2011 and 2016 and the statistical yearbook of 2016 were used. The calculation of the effect of migration on the gender ratio of counties was done based on the Compositional Impact of migration (CIM) introduced by Rodriguez Vigenoli and Rood (2018). The results showed that the most significant change in gender ratio was in the 15-29 age group, and gender ratio changes in the 15-29 and 30-49 age groups have spatial autocorrelation. Furthermore, compared to the ordinary least squares (OLS) method, the results of GWR show that migration has decreased the sex ratio of counties with higher education development and increased this ratio in counties with higher socio-economic development. Therefore, to reduce the negative impact of internal migration, implementing policies to reduce economic and educational inequality in less developed counties may reduce internal migration and gender ratios in some origin and destination areas.