Iran has experienced waves of emigration since the Iranian Revolution in 1979. The creation of a ministry of immigration has been proposed after reports indicated critical statistics, largely due to political instability.[9][10][11]
Statistics by country
List of countries and territories by Iranian population
Nearly 60 percent of Iranians abroad have earned at least an undergraduate degree, and have one of the highest rates of self-employment among immigrant groups. Many have founded their own companies, including Isaac Larian, the founder of MGA Entertainment, and Pierre Omidyar, who founded eBay in 1995 in San Jose, California. Iranian households in the United States earn on average $87,288 annually in 2018, and are ranked ninth by income.[22]
According to the Iranian government, 55,686 Iranian students were studying abroad in 2013:[23] 8,883 studied in Malaysia, 7,341 in the United States, 5,638 in Canada, 3,504 in Germany, 3,364 in Turkey, 3,228 in Britain, and the rest in other countries.[24][25] The Iranian Ministry of Education estimated that between 350,000 and 500,000 Iranians were studying outside Iran as of 2014.[26]
In 2000, the Iran Press Service reported that Iranian expatriates had invested between $200 and $400 billion in the United States, Europe, and China, but almost nothing in Iran.[5] In Dubai, Iranian expatriates have invested an estimated $200 billion (2006).[27] Migrant Iranian workers abroad remitted less than two billion dollars home in 2006.[28]
The Iranian diaspora has been commonly defined as a largely people from upper-middle classes, secular and as cultural or nominal Muslims; the majority of them do not take fundamental Islamic rituals, such as daily prayers or fasting, and having largely embraced Western secularism.[43] Some expatriate Iranians consider themselves to be irreligious, agnostic, or atheist.[44][45][46]
Notes
In the period between 1961 and 2005, the United States became the main destination of Iranian emigrants. An estimated 378,995 Iranians have immigrated to the United States in that period, where Iranian immigrants have primarily immigrated to California (158,613 Iran-born in 2000),[47]New York (17,323),[47]Texas (15,581),[47]Virginia (10,889),[47] and Maryland (9,733).[47] The Los Angeles Metropolitan Area was estimated to be host to approximately 114,712 Iranian immigrants,[47] earning the Westwood area of Los Angeles the nickname Tehrangeles.
The US Census Bureau's decennial census form does not offer a designation for individuals of Iranian descent, and therefore it is estimated that only a fraction of the total number of Iranians are writing in their ancestry. The 2000 Census Bureau estimates that the Iranian American community (including the US-born children of the Iranian foreign born) numbers around 330,000. Studies using alternative statistical methods have estimated the actual number of Iranian Americans in the range of 691,000 to 1.2 million.[5][48]
^"Diaspora". Iranicaonline.org. Encyclopædia Iranica. December 15, 1995. pp. 370–387. Archived from the original on 9 February 2015. Retrieved 8 February 2015.
High Council of Iranians Abroad- "Strengthening the national identity of Iranians outside Iran and to defend their rights, helping the propagation of Persian calligraphy and language, and easing the participation in national security."