by Amir Taheri, GATESTONE • January 29, 2023
Since 1979, when the mullahs seized power, Iran has topped the list of countries hit by “brain drain”. However, what was a sectoral hemorrhage may now become a general bleeding affecting other sectors of the population. (Image source: Curimedia/Wikimedia Commons)
- Since 1979, when the mullahs seized power, Iran has topped the list of countries hit by “brain drain”. However, what was a sectoral hemorrhage may now become a general bleeding affecting other sectors of the population.
- The study shows that the desire to flee Iran isn’t caused by economic hardship, unemployment or inflation. It is not the poor and/or the unemployed that wish to flee but those who either have or could have well-paid jobs and a seat on the gravy train of the mullahs and their security-military associates.
- To deal with the consequences of “brain drain”, the Islamic Republic has unveiled a program to attract highly-educated and skilled people from “anywhere in the world” with a promise of thee-year contracts, good salaries and “all rights apart from voting”.
Since 1979, when the mullahs seized power, Iran has topped the list of countries hit by “brain drain”. However, what was a sectoral hemorrhage may now become a general bleeding affecting other sectors of the population.
A feature in the official news agency IRNA was headlined, “It’s not only the elite who emigrate.”
The daily Javan, an organ of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also warns that Iran is losing some if its best-educated people and claims that mass-emigration by “elite elements” is costing the nation millions of dollars. Emigration is now attracting Iranians with lower skills or no skills.
According to best semi-official estimates, since 1979, some eight million people, almost 10 percent of the population, have left Iran, including an estimated 4.2 million with higher education and skills.
In the past four years, the brain drain has accelerated, with an average of 4,000 medical doctors leaving each year.
According to IRNA, right now 30,000 general practitioners and senior nurses are waiting for “good standing “certificates that developed nations require from those wishing to emigrate from so-called “developing nations” such as Iran.
A study by two Tehran University researchers, Adel Abdullahi and Maryam Rezai, shows that almost all Iranians who emigrate seek to enter the European Union or the so-called “Anglosphere” countries such as Britain, Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia.
Only 10 percent of would-be emigrants are willing to go “anywhere else” to get out of Iran.
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