Abstract
In this study, we explore how urban places and associated community affect one other as well as the quality of life of rural immigrants. The purpose of this study is to provide more accurate insight into the spatial and social factors affecting the quality of life of rural-urban migrants. Migration is closely linked to people’s living conditions. Specifically, the feelings one has about the quality of their place and the society in which they live impacts decisions to stay or move from one place to another. If deciding to move, migration affects the quality of life through the migrants’ sense of place and the new community they are relocating to. Our study was conducted in Hamedan, Iran - a place that experiences the migration of many different ethnicities given its central location in Hamadan province and the quality of life conditions in surrounding geographical locations. We surveyed 2735 citizens who had migrated to the city in the last 2 to 5 years. Our results indicate that place attachment and social capital, as variables that represent rural migrants’ sense of place and urban community, are both related to the quality of life of migrants. Furthermore, social capital moderates place attachment and has a significant impact on subjective quality of life among rural-urban migrants. We suggest that high levels of social capital must be present to ensure a satisfactory subjective quality of life among rural-urban migrants.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams, H. (2016). Why populations persist: Mobility, place attachment and climate change. Population and Environment, 37(4), 429–448.
Adler, P. S., & Kwon, S. W. (2002). Social capital: Prospects for a new concept. Academy of Management Review, 27(1), 17–40.
Amundsen, H. (2015). Place attachment as a driver of adaptation in coastal communities in Northern Norway. Local Environment, 20(3), 257–276.
Benson, M., & O'reilly, K. (2009). Migration and the search for a better way of life: A critical exploration of lifestyle migration. The Sociological Review, 57(4), 608–625.
Bhopal, R. S. (2014). Migration, ethnicity, race, and health in multicultural societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brehm, J. M., Eisenhauer, B. W., & Krannich, R. S. (2004). Dimensions of community attachment and their relationship to well-being in the amenity-rich rural west. Rural Sociology, 69(3), 405–429.
Brown, B. B., & Perkins, D. D. (1992). Disruptions in place attachment. In Place attachment (pp. 279–304). Boston: Springer.
Budruk, M., & Feldhaus, A. (2019). Understanding place meaning through integrative research: Perspectives from the natural resource social sciences and the humanities. Journal of Leisure Research, 1–18.
Burholt, V. (2006). ‘Adref’: theoretical contexts of attachment to place for mature and older people in rural North Wales. Environment and Planning A, 38(6), 1095–1114.
Byrne, B. M. (2013). Structural equation modeling with Mplus: Basic concepts, applications, and programming. Routledge.
Cai, R., Esipova, N., Oppenheimer, M., & Feng, S. (2014). International migration desires related to subjective well-being. IZA Journal of Migration, 3(1), 8.
Chen, Y., & Rosenthal, S. S. (2008). Local amenities and life-cycle migration: Do people move for jobs or fun? Journal of Urban Economics, 64(3), 519–537.
Cloutier, S., & Pfeiffer, D. (2015). Sustainability through happiness: A framework for sustainable development. Sustainable Development, 23(5), 317–327.
Cloutier, S., Berejnoi, E., Russell, S., Morrison, B. A., & Ross, A. (2018). Toward a holistic sustainable and happy neighborhood development assessment tool: A critical review of relevant literature. Ecological Indicators, 89, 139–149.
Coleman, J. S. (2000). Social capital in the creation of human capital. In Knowledge and social capital (pp. 17–41). Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Curthoys, A. (1993). Identity crisis: Colonialism, nation, and gender in Australian history. Gender & History, 5(2), 165–176.
Dandy, J., Horwitz, P., Campbell, R., Drake, D., & Leviston, Z. (2019). Leaving home: Place attachment and decisions to move in the face of environmental change. Regional Environmental Change, 19(2), 615–620.
De Jong, G. F. (2000). Expectations, gender, and norms in migration decision-making. Population Studies, 54(3), 307–319.
Diener, E., & Suh, E. (1997). Measuring quality of life: Economic, social, and subjective indicators. Social indicators research, 40(1-2), 189–216.
Diener, E. (2000). Subjective well-being: The science of happiness and a proposal for a national index. American psychologist, 55(1), 34.
Diener, E., Nickerson, C., Lucas, R. E., & Sandvik, E. (2002). Dispositional affect and job outcomes. Social Indicators Research, 59(3), 229–259.
DiPasquale, D., & Glaeser, E. L. (1999). Incentives and social capital: Are homeowners better citizens? Journal of Urban Economics, 45(2), 354–384.
Farr, J. (2004). Social capital: A conceptual history. Political Theory, 32(1), 6–33.
Favell, A. (2008). The new face of East–West migration in Europe. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 34(5), 701–716.
Fazel, N., Berndtsson, R., Uvo, C. B., Madani, K., & Kløve, B. (2018). Regionalization of precipitation characteristics in Iran’s Lake Urmia basin. Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 132(1–2), 363–373.
Forrest, R., & Kearns, A. (2001). Social cohesion, social capital and the neighbourhood. Urban Studies, 38(12), 2125–2143.
Ghadarjani, R., & Gheitarani, N. (2013). Methods for enhancing public participation in the rehabilitation and renovation of deteriorated housing (case study: Joulan neighborhood in the Hamedan City). Haft Hesar Journal of Environmental Studies, 1(2), 75–83.
Ghadarjani, R., Gheitarani, N., & Khanian, M. (2013). Examination of city governorship pattern and citizen participation as a new approach to city management in region 5 of Isfahan municipality using T-test in SPSS. European Online Journal of Natural and Social Sciences, 2(4), 601.
Gheitarani, N., Ghadarjani, R., Kahvand, M., & Mehrabadi, S. A. M. (2013). Explaining the effective measures in decreasing the vulnerability of urban area against earthquake using AHP model (case study: Tehran, a metropolis). Journal of Basic and Applied Scientific Research, 3(8), 675–681.
Gheitarany, N., Mosalsal, A., Rahmani, A., Khanian, M., & Mokhtari, M. (2013). The role of contemporary urban designs in the conflict between vehicle users and pedestrians in Iran cities (case study: Hamedan City). World Applied Sciences Journal, 21(10), 1546–1551.
Gromski, P. S., Muhamadali, H., Ellis, D. I., Xu, Y., Correa, E., Turner, M. L., & Goodacre, R. (2015). A tutorial review: Metabolomics and partial least squares-discriminant analysis–a marriage of convenience or a shotgun wedding. Analytica Chimica Acta, 879, 10–23.
Grootaert, C., Narayan, D., Jones, V. N., ∓ Woolcock, M. (2004). Measuring social capital: An integrated questionnaire. The World Bank.
Gustafson, P. (2002). Globalisation, multiculturalism and individualism: the Swedish debate on dual citizenship. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 28(3), 463–481.
Haghighi, K. Z., Gheitarani, N., Khanian, M., & Taghadosi, R. (2014). Examination of effects of urban street configuration on the amount of commercial buildings establishment (according to natural movement theory), case study: Hamedan. European Online Journal of Natural and Social Sciences, 3(1), 20.
Hair Jr., J. F., Sarstedt, M., Hopkins, L., & Kuppelwieser, V. G. (2014). Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) an emerging tool in business research. European Business Review, 26(2), 106–121.
Hanifan, L. J. (1916). The rural school community center. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 67(1), 130–138.
Henseler, J. (2015). Partial least squares. In C. Cooper, N. Lee, & A. Farrell (Eds.), Wiley encyclopedia of management. Chichester: Wiley.
Henseler, J., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2015). A new criterion for assessing discriminant validity in variance-based structural equation modeling. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(1), 115–135.
Hernández, B., Hidalgo, M. C., Salazar-Laplace, M. E., & Hess, S. (2007). Place attachment and place identity in natives and non-natives. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 27(4), 310–319.
Hidalgo, M. C., & Hernandez, B. (2001). Place attachment: Conceptual and empirical questions. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 21(3), 273–281.
Hofferth, S. L., & Iceland, J. (1998). Social capital in rural and urban communities. Rural Sociology, 63(4), 574–598.
Kahvand, M., Gheitarani, N., Khanian, M. O. J. T. A. B. A., & Ghadarjani, R. A. Z. I. E. H. (2015). Urban solid waste landfill selection by SDSS. Case study: Hamadan. Environment Protection Engineering, 41(2), 47–56.
Karimi, M., & Brazier, J. (2016). Health, health-related quality of life, and quality of life: What is the difference? Pharmacoeconomics, 34(7), 645–649.
Khanian, M., Bolouhar, B., Gheitarany, N., & Nezhad, S. M. (2013). Studying the causes of vitality in traditional markets of Iran (case study: Shoemaking order of central market of Hamadan). World Applied Sciences Journal, 22(6), 831–835.
Khanian, M., Serpoush, B., & Gheitarani, N. (2019). Balance between place attachment and migration based on subjective adaptive capacity in response to climate change: The case of Famenin County in Western Iran. Climate and Development, 11(1), 69–82.
Kim, K., & Cohen, J. E. (2010). Determinants of international migration flows to and from industrialized countries: A panel data approach beyond gravity. International Migration Review, 44(4), 899–932.
King, R. (2002). Towards a new map of European migration. Population, Space and Place, 8(2), 89–106.
Kyle, G., Graefe, A., Manning, R., & Bacon, J. (2004). Effect of activity involvement and place attachment on recreationists' perceptions of setting density. Journal of Leisure Research, 36(2), 209–231.
Kyle, G., Graefe, A., & Manning, R. (2005). Testing the dimensionality of place attachment in recreational settings. Environment and Behavior, 37(2), 153–177.
Levie, J. (2007). Immigration, in-migration, ethnicity and entrepreneurship in the United Kingdom. Small Business Economics, 28(2–3), 143–169.
Lewicka, M. (2011). Place attachment: How far have we come in the last 40 years? Journal of Environmental Psychology, 31(3), 207–230.
Lin, N. (2002). Social capital: A theory of social structure and action (Vol. 19). Cambridge: Cambridge university press.
Liu, S. (2015). Searching for a sense of place: Identity negotiation of Chinese immigrants. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 46, 26–35.
Liu, W., Sidhu, A., Beacom, A. M., & Valente, T. W. (2017). Social network theory. In The international encyclopedia of media effects. Chichester: Wiley.
Low, S. M., & Altman, I. (1992). Place attachment. In Place attachment (pp. 1–12). Boston: Springer.
Lu, M. (1999). Determinants of residential satisfaction: Ordered logit vs. regression models. Growth and Change, 30(2), 264–287.
Madani, K. (2014). Water management in Iran: What is causing the looming crisis? Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 4(4), 315–328.
Madani, K., AghaKouchak, A., & Mirchi, A. (2016). Iran’s socio-economic drought: Challenges of a water-bankrupt nation. Iranian Studies, 49(6), 997–1016.
Mayer, M. (2003). The onward sweep of social capital: Causes and consequences for understanding cities, communities and urban movements. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 27(1), 110–132.
Milligan, M. J. (1998). Interactional past and potential: The social construction of place attachment. Symbolic Interaction, 21(1), 1–33.
Nahapiet, J., & Ghoshal, S. (2000). Social capital, intellectual capital, and the organizational advantage. Knowledge and social capital, Elsevier (pp. 119–157).
Newton, K. (2001). Trust, social capital, civil society, and democracy. International Political Science Review, 22(2), 201–214.
Nguyen, L. D., Raabe, K., & Grote, U. (2015). Rural–urban migration, household vulnerability, and welfare in Vietnam. World Development, 71, 79–93.
Orwin, R. G. (1983). A fail-safe N for effect size in meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Statistics, 8(2), 157–159.
Phillips, D., & Robinson, D. (2015). Reflections on migration, community, and place. Population, Space and Place, 21(5), 409–420.
Proshansky, H. M., Fabian, A. K., & Kaminoff, R. (1983). Place-identity: Physical world socialization of the self. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 3(1), 57–83.
Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. In Culture and politics (pp. 223–234). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Raymond, C. M., Brown, G., & Weber, D. (2010). The measurement of place attachment: Personal, community, and environmental connections. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 30(4), 422–434.
Ringle, C. M., Da Silva, D., & Bido, D. D. S. (2015). Structural equation modeling with the SmartPLS. Brazilian Journal of Marketing, 13, –18.
Rose, R. (2000). How much does social capital add to individual health? Social science & medicine, 51(9), 1421–1435.
Sirgy, M. J., & Cornwell, T. (2002). How neighborhood features affect quality of life. Social Indicators Research, 59(1), 79–114.
Smith, M. H., Beaulieu, L. J., & Seraphine, A. (1995). Social capital, place of residence, and college attendance. Rural Sociology, 60(3), 363–380.
Smith, J. W., Anderson, D. H., & Moore, R. L. (2012). Social capital, place meanings, and perceived resilience to climate change. Rural Sociology, 77(3), 380–407.
Statistical Center of Iran 2015.
Stillman, S., Gibson, J., McKenzie, D., & Rohorua, H. (2015). Miserable migrants? Natural experiment evidence on international migration and objective and subjective well-being. World Development, 65, 79–93.
Theodori, G. L. (2001). Examining the effects of community satisfaction and attachment on individual well-being. Rural Sociology, 66(4), 618–628.
Williams, D. R., Patterson, M. E., Roggenbuck, J. W., & Watson, A. E. (1992). Beyond the commodity metaphor: Examining emotional and symbolic attachment to place. Leisure sciences, 14(1), 29–46.
Vismara, S. (2016). Equity retention and social network theory in equity crowdfunding. Small Business Economics, 46(4), 579–590.
Zakerhaghighi, K., Khanian, M., & Gheitarani, N. (2015). Subjective quality of life; assessment of residents of informal settlements in Iran (a case study of Hesar Imam Khomeini, Hamedan). Applied Research in Quality of Life, 10(3), 419–434.
Zhang, K. H., & Shunfeng, S. (2003). Rural–urban migration and urbanization in China: Evidence from time-series and cross-section analyses. China Economic Review, 14(4), 386–400.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gheitarani, N., El-Sayed, S., Cloutier, S. et al. “Investigating the Mechanism of Place and Community Impact on Quality of Life of Rural-Urban Migrants”. Int. Journal of Com. WB 3, 21–38 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42413-019-00052-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42413-019-00052-8