Iranian Labor Migration to OECD Countries and Economic Factors Affecting it

Labor is one of the most important factors of production and its migration abroad imposes economic opportunity costs to the society. In this study we have tried to examine economic factors involved in labor migration from Iran during 2002-2012. In this study, the theoretical foundations of the gravity models and estimation method of Panel data have been used for labor migration from Iran to 8 OECD member countries. These countries have the largest share of Iran's labor migration. The esults show that increase in population, foreign trade and economic growth of Iran decrease labor migration. On the other hand the increase in population, foreign trade, economic growth and wages of destination OECD countries, in addition to, the increase in unemployment rate in Iran and accumulation of Iranian immigrants in destination countries increase labor migration. Accordingly, due to the significant and strong impact of unemployment rate and GDP growth of Iran on migration flows, devising plan to improve economic conditions of Iran is necessary to control the upward trend of migration.