The UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies (CNES) has published a public online dashboard that pulls together data on Iranians living outside of Iran. The online tool provides demographic and socioeconomic profiles of Iranian diaspora communities worldwide and is now available through the CNES website.
The dashboard is the product of several years of research conducted by Kevan Harris, associate professor of sociology at UCLA and a member of the CNES Faculty Advisory Committee. Together with graduate students of the department of sociology, Harris has synthesized data from various sources related to the age, gender, educational level, career placement and marriage status of first- and second-generation Iranian Americans in the United States, and is working to expand this analysis globally.
The team used the American Community Survey published by the U.S. Census Bureau, together with its Public Use Microdata Samples, to document how first- and second-generation Iranians live, learn and work in the United States. Between 568,564 and 619,991 Iranian Americans call the United States home, making it the world's largest Iranian diaspora community. Most have settled on the West Coast, with California as the primary destination.
“Rather than lump everyone together, we split the population by age cohorts as well as by ‘migrant generation.’ By comparing across generations within the same age ranges, one can distinguish patterns that correspond to being part of a younger or older migrant cohort versus simply being born in the U.S. to an Iranian parent or parents,” said Harris.
The data reveals a striking shift: a longstanding gender gap in educational attainment among Iranians has completely disappeared among younger migrants to the US. Both generations now pursue higher education at remarkable rates, and second-generation Iranian American women have actually surpassed their male counterparts in earning bachelor's degrees and beyond.
When it comes to work, Harris noted that “self-employment is especially common among first-generation men, but Iranian Americans are spread across virtually every sector of the economy—from nonprofits to government agencies to corporate boardrooms.” Most tellingly, the workplace patterns reveal a generational transformation: where first-generation Iranian Americans show sharp age-related employment differences, their American-born children participate in the workforce at higher rates overall and display far more gender equality across all professional sectors.
Marriage patterns reveal perhaps the most dramatic generational transformation of all. While 60 percent of first-generation Iranian Americans marry other Iranians—many bringing spouses from Iran or marrying within established Iranian communities—their American-born children largely chart an different course. Only 20 percent of second-generation Iranian Americans marry fellow Iranians. Instead, they overwhelmingly choose white, non-Hispanic partners, mirroring a broader pattern among Asian-origin Americans. This contrast reflects both changing cultural ties and the reality of where and when people marry,' Harris observes.
The United Nations estimates there are 1.7 million Iranian migrants worldwide. Over 20 countries each have more than 5,000 citizens of Iranian descent. These estimates, however, only include people born in Iran (first-generation migrants), not those born elsewhere (second-generation migrants). While the United States has the largest Iranian immigrant population, Iranian communities also exist in Europe, Canada, Australia and nearby countries. The new dashboard provides an overview of this global diaspora of Iranian immigrants, with dedicated modules for the United States, Canada and Europe.
Professor Harris and his team continue to build out new modules on language use, cultural ties, and parallel analyses for Canada, Europe and beyond.
“Our aim is to offer a transparent, flexible tool that shows how people from one origin country adapt to very different national contexts—while always making clear the data gaps and definitional fuzziness that come with mapping any global diaspora,” he concluded.
The dashboard is regularly updated with new data and is publicly available. View its contents here.