Deprivation Spatial Concentration in a Developing Country: Evidence from Iran

Abstract

This study is an attempt to locate deprived areas and explore the causes of spatially concentrated deprivation in Iran as a developing country. A systematic review was conducted of geographical and place‐based analyses that considered multiple deprivation, and deprived parts of the country were identified. Findings show the dominance of relative meaning of the concept in studies that overlap with rural areas and borders. There is good evidence that this part is entrapped in multideprivation as deprived and was identified not only in a single domain; moreover, a strong emphasis was placed on infrastructure, housing, communication, health, income, and employment, while in contrast to the literature, there was no strong emphasis on education. Deprivation was enhanced by increasing migration; it is not just migration of people, especially specialists, but also migration of investments that is important to mobilize deprived settings' potential for an endogenous development. This is essential, as results highlighted the failure of government planning policies to lift the deprived parts of the country out of deprivation; rather they enhance vicious circles of deprivation caused by persistence of the most deprived provinces at the bottom of the ranking list for several decades. Review shows deprivation as a result of inequality in Iran.