{"id":349335,"date":"2026-11-14T13:46:39","date_gmt":"2026-11-14T12:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=349335"},"modified":"2026-11-14T13:46:39","modified_gmt":"2026-11-14T12:46:39","slug":"iran-is-losing-something-harder-to-rebuild-than-gdp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/economy\/iran-is-losing-something-harder-to-rebuild-than-gdp\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran Is Losing Something Harder to Rebuild Than GDP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-316027\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Iran-brain-drain.jpg\" alt=\"Iran brain drain\" width=\"1000\" height=\"567\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Iran-brain-drain.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Iran-brain-drain-300x170.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Iran-brain-drain-768x435.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Iran-brain-drain-150x85.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Iran-brain-drain-696x395.jpg 696w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><em>Three-minute read<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Inflation can fall. Factories can be rebuilt. Oil exports can recover. But an economy depends on something considerably harder to reconstruct: people believing that tomorrow will be stable enough to justify investing in it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Iran is rapidly consuming that asset. The evidence now comes not merely from regime critics, but from institutions operating inside the country. A national survey cited by Mohammad Bat\u2019haei, deputy interior minister and head of Iran\u2019s Social Affairs Organization, <a href=\"https:\/\/apiservices.etma.ir\/fa\/news\/753394\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">found that the<\/a> country\u2019s social-capital index fell from 43.5 in 2015 to 36.6 in 2025. Only about a quarter of respondents considered society fair, while 60 percent said they had no hope conditions would improve and could not tolerate greater economic pressure.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Those figures should themselves be treated cautiously. Iran is not an open information environment. Reporters Without Borders ranks the country <a href=\"https:\/\/rsf.org\/en\/2026-rsf-index-press-freedom-25-year-low\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">177th out of 180<\/a> in its 2026 World Press Freedom Index and says the media landscape is largely controlled by the regime, while independent journalists face arrests, censorship and severe restrictions. Economic data are opaque as well: even Iranian economic reporting has complained that the Central Bank has withheld complete statistical series, leaving analysts to reconstruct key indicators from officials\u2019 verbal statements and incomplete releases. The official numbers therefore should not be mistaken for a complete picture. If anything, they establish that even within a tightly controlled information system, the deterioration has become too large to conceal.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Many experts consider the rial\u2019s devaluation to continue since its rate depends on macroeconomic factors: <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/inflation?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#inflation<\/a>, the increasing liquidity rate due to the banknote printing, huge capital flight, destruction of production, &amp; low GDP. <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/IranRevolution?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#IranRevolution<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Pb4NEPotHk\">https:\/\/t.co\/Pb4NEPotHk<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/iran_policy\/status\/1607837437577003008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 27, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">When the Future Becomes Too Risky<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Amir-Hossein Jalali Nadoushan, spokesman for the Iranian Psychiatric Association, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hamshahrionline.ir\/news\/1063945\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">has given the phenomenon<\/a> an unusually revealing name: \u201cmental and social migration.\u201d Iranians who cannot physically leave, he says, increasingly withdraw their capital, energy and participation from society while arranging their lives around the possibility of eventually getting out. Persistent economic, political and military crises have placed society in a state of \u201csocial suspension,\u201d shortening people\u2019s planning horizons.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In another discussion <a href=\"https:\/\/jahanesanat.ir\/%d8%ae%db%8c%d8%b2-%d8%ae%d8%a7%d9%85%d9%88%d8%b4-%d8%b1%d9%86%d8%ac\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">published in <em>Jahan-e Sanat<\/em><\/a>, Jalali described the broader consequence as a form of collective trauma. Chronic uncertainty, he argued, can cause society to lose confidence not merely in the future but in cooperation, constructive activity and investment itself. The problem is no longer simply that people are poorer. It is that growing numbers increasingly see the future as something over which they exercise little control.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">That has economic consequences far beyond mental health. Families postpone buying homes, having children, pursuing further education or making professional investments. Entrepreneurs avoid long-term commitments. Capital seeks liquidity and escape routes rather than productive deployment. Jalali\u2019s description is therefore not just sociological. It is a description of an economy steadily losing its willingness to look forward.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Iranian regime\u2019s destructive policies have made the brain drain phenomenon a daily routine. Doctors, nurses, engineers, and other elites are fleeing <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/Iran?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Iran<\/a> and seeking better lives in other countries.<br \/>Read more here<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ODe9iuszV4\">https:\/\/t.co\/ODe9iuszV4<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/cCLE5suTRN\">pic.twitter.com\/cCLE5suTRN<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/iran_policy\/status\/1435170462145855492?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 7, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">An Economy That Stops Looking Forward<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/thedocs.worldbank.org\/en\/doc\/7210a1bcbdc24a6d73c62228ee1e3e70-0500042021\/related\/data-irn.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">World Bank\u2019s latest<\/a> indicators show how visible that retreat has become. Iran\u2019s gross investment is estimated to fall from 28.1 percent of GDP in 2024\/25 to 25.7 percent in 2025\/26 and 23.8 percent in 2026, while public investment is projected to fall to just 3 percent of GDP.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This is what makes some state-affiliated insiders ponder. A factory shutting because electricity is unavailable is visible. The entrepreneur who decides never to build the next factory is not.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Businesses face energy shortages, unstable regulation, depreciating currency and financing constraints. Households face rapidly rising living costs and deteriorating real incomes. Under such circumstances, preserving wealth through gold, foreign currency or assets abroad can become more rational than committing capital to machinery, research, hiring or projects whose returns depend on years of stability.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Leaked documents exposed by <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ghiamsarnegouny?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@ghiamsarnegouny<\/a> show how some elements within the clerical regime try to sound the alarm about <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/braindrain?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#braindrain<\/a> in <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/Iran?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Iran<\/a>. Yet their recommendations on how to avoid it continue to fall on deaf ears. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/vFAWd5fSTZ\">https:\/\/t.co\/vFAWd5fSTZ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/iran_policy\/status\/1677595878830268416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 8, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">Human Capital Is Leaving Too<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Human capital follows the same logic. Iran continues to educate doctors, engineers and scientists, but increasingly struggles to persuade them that their future belongs inside the country.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Commonwealth Fund reports that about <a href=\"https:\/\/farhikhteganonline.ir\/news\/80552\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">6,500 Iranian doctors<\/a>, including 2,300 specialists, left during 2022 and 2023, 30 percent more than the number entering the profession. It also notes that 850 medical faculty members left their academic positions in the year ending March 2024, weakening the pipeline that trains the next generation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Physical emigration is only the most measurable part of the loss. \u201cMental and social migration\u201d begins before anyone crosses a border. Someone preparing psychologically or financially to leave has less reason to commit savings to a decade-long domestic investment, build a career inside a deteriorating institution or sacrifice today for benefits dependent on tomorrow\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The clerical regime&#39;s own <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/economic?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#economic<\/a> reports reveal collapsing industrial output, mounting shortages and government decisions that threaten to accelerate the erosion of Iran&#39;s productive capacity. <br \/>By <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MansoreGolestan?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@MansoreGolestan<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/faVhE9Gd2C\">https:\/\/t.co\/faVhE9Gd2C<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/iran_policy\/status\/2117176857082679804?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 2, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">A Loss Money Alone Cannot Repair<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This is the damage that headline economic indicators miss. The regime is not merely depreciating the rial. It is steadily reducing the value many Iranians assign to remaining in Iran, investing in Iran and organizing their futures around institutions they do not trust.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">A currency can eventually be stabilized. Trade can resume. Oil revenues can recover. None automatically restores the businesses never created, investments never made, specialists who left, children families decided not to have, or years during which citizens learned that long-term planning was irrational.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">That is why the decline in social capital may ultimately prove more consequential than another inflation reading. The regime can print money, ration energy and redistribute shrinking resources. It cannot administratively manufacture trust.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/economy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Iran\u2019s economic crisis<\/a> is therefore becoming something deeper than recession or inflation. The country is not simply losing money. It is losing the willingness of its own people to bet their futures on the system around them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three-minute read Inflation can fall. Factories can be rebuilt. Oil exports can recover. But an economy depends on something considerably harder to reconstruct: people believing that tomorrow will be stable enough to justify investing in it. Iran is rapidly consuming that asset. The evidence now comes not merely from regime critics, but from institutions operating [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":316027,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[269],"class_list":["post-349335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-iran-economy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Iran Is Losing Something Harder to Rebuild Than GDP - NCRI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Three-minute read Inflation can fall. Factories can be rebuilt. Oil exports can recover. 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