Measuring and Ranking the Index of Development Opportunities in the Provinces of Iran

Abstract

Equality of development opportunities is one of the socio-economic goals and a basic prerequisite for achieving economic stability and integrated progress in a country. In the present research, 69 development indicators related to cultural-social, educational, infrastructure, health-treatment, environmental and economic sectors were analyzed to identify and compare the development opportunities of 30 provinces of Iran. Shannon's entropy method was used to determine the weights of the indicators and the TOPSIS method was used to rank the provinces in terms of access to the opportunities of each sector. Finally, by using the taxonomy technique, the degree of enjoyment of the provinces from a total of six opportunities was evaluated. The results show that there is a deep gap in the distribution and allocation of facilities and opportunities among the provinces of the country. Tehran province was the most privileged and Kurdistan, South Khorasan, Lorestan, West Azerbaijan and North Khorasan provinces were determined as the most deprived provinces. Based on significant difference among provinces, it is recommended that the priorities of the budget allocation be determined according to the degrees of benefits for the provinces. IntroductionThe growth and development of regions is condemned to be asynchronous; unequal and unbalanced development of different regions is one of the main challenges in most countries and economics. Due to many geographical, demographic and economic factors, Iran is prone to all kinds of regional inequalities and imbalances and is by no means an exception. The lack of balance among the provinces of a country can cause many harms, including damage to national unity, income gap, and limited areas enjoying the desired level of development and intensifying deprivation in other areas, immigration, geographic density, poverty, injustice and finally stopping development in all dimensions. The basic question that regional economic theorists try to answer is why some regions are more developed and growing faster than others and some are declining. In response to this controversial question, it is necessary to mention that the regional difference can be seen as a clear manifestation of the lack of equal access to opportunities, because inequalities are largely rooted in unequal opportunities. Therefore, the way of allocating resources and opportunities in societies is one of the important factors determining the distribution pattern of their growth and development. Methods and materialThe purpose of this study is to investigate, identify and analyze the situation of Iran provinces in terms of development opportunities during the period of 2006-2019. For this purpose, it is tried to calculate the index of development opportunities by using a comprehensive set of development indicators that are closely related to equal opportunities and also we use multi-criteria decision-making method, and then the provinces of Iran according to the degree of prosperity are ranked and classified. We also combine the sub-indices to make one-dimensional indices, by using TOPSIS technique with weighted entropy for six main indices; These indicators are: 1. Socio-cultural dimension, 2. Economic dimension, 3. Health-treatment dimension, 4. Infrastructural dimension, 5. Educational dimension and 6. Environmental dimension. Then, by using Taxonomy method, we combine six indices, to separate and grade provinces into five homogeneous groups based on the level of access to development opportunities.The statistical population includes all provinces of Iran (thirty provinces including Alborz province in Tehran province). The data has been extracted from the most important database of the country, namely the portal of the Statistical Center of Iran, while the time period has been limited according to the availability of provincial data. Results and DiscussionThe findings of the research show that Tehran province has the highest development opportunities among the provinces of the country. This province ranks first in the ranking of provinces in terms of educational, health, economic and cultural-social indicators, third in infrastructure and sixth in environmental indicators. Meanwhile, the seventeen provinces of Iran including Hamedan, Markazi, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Yazd, Golestan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmad, Zanjan, Kermanshah, Ardabil, Ilam, Kerman, Sistan and Baluchistan, Kurdistan, South Khorasan, Lorestan, West Azerbaijan and North Khorasan has been placed in the category of underprivileged or very underprivileged provinces in terms of development opportunities gains.It seems that advantages such as access to appropriate infrastructure like communication, physical and information networks, commercial services, proximity to skilled labor markets and competitive enterprises, as well as the ability to access research institutions have a great role in Tehran province situation compared to other provinces. ConclusionThe results showed that the hypothesis of uneven distribution of various facilities and services among the provinces of the country is confirmed, In other words, there are significant differences among the different provinces of the country in terms of development opportunities. Therefore, it is suggested to policy makers and planners to pay attention to the research done on regional opportunities and in their policies and orientations, and in addition to national approaches, consider regional development approaches by prioritizing provinces based on the degree of development and the level of prosperity, in the framework of planning based on land use. It is also suggested that in future studies, considering the scope of the concept of development opportunities and the quantitative and qualitative indicators of this category, these indicators be extended further so that more useful information is available to planners and policy makers in order to eliminate imbalances.