The Experience of Rural Development Policy and its Impact on the Social Mobility of Villagers after the Islamic Revolution: (Case Study: Selected Villages of Marand City)

Authors

Department Social Planning, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to study the impact of rural initiatives and developments on the occupational mobility of villagers in selected villages in the city of Marand. It was assumed that the rural reforms of the government after the revolution, which was primarily influenced by populist and egalitarian ideology, would have an effect on the social mobility of the target population.
To investigate the impact of rural reform on rural mobility, the ex-post-facto comparative method was utilized in three groups of matched villages, based on development potentials and the number of rural programs or actions implemented, and random sampling was used to collect research data.
Mobility is greater in villages with more development measures, indicating that rural initiatives have had effects. However, the nature of mobility revealed that both upward and downward moves occurred predominantly within short-range adjacent occupations; consequently, movements were uncommon at the top of the job structure continuum.
In summary, the study concludes that although it is possible to conduct research on social mobility at the micro level and in a smaller community such as a village, the study of occupational mobility at the village level cannot be classified according to the standard that will be applied to the larger society. In addition, since rural society is experiencing the phenomenon of migration, the findings cannot necessarily reflect the job mobility of those who were promoted and took advantage of new opportunities, but did not reside in the village during the field research.

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