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Iran
Emigration
Since the Revolution, there has been a small but steady emigration
of educated Iranians. Estimates of the number vary from 750,000
to 1.5 million. Most such emigrants have preferred to settle in
Western Europe or the United States, although there are also sizable
communities of Iranians in Turkey. Newspapers in Istanbul claimed
during 1986 that as many as 600,000 Iranians were living in Turkey,
although the Turkish Ministry of Interior has reported that there
are only about 30,000 Iranians in the country. The United States
census for 1980 found 122,000 Iranians living in the United States.
By 1987 it was estimated this number exceeded 200,000, with the
largest concentration found in southern California.
Iranian emigrants tended to be highly educated, many holding
degrees from American and West European universities. A sizable
proportion were members of the prerevolutionary political elite.
They had been wealthy before the Revolution, and many succeeded
in transferring much of their wealth out of Iran during and after
the Revolution.
Other Iranians who have emigrated include members of religious
minorities, especially Bahais and Jews; intellectuals who had
opposed the old regime, which they accused of suppressing free
thought and who have the same attitude toward the Islamic Republic;
members of ethnic minorities; political opponents of the government
in Tehran; and some young men who deserted from the military or
sought to avoid conscription. There were virtually no economic
emigrants from Iran, although a few thousand Iranians have continued
to work in Kuwait, Qatar, and other Persian Gulf states, as before
the Revolution.
Data as of December 1987
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