A Newspaper Report on the Results of a Nationwide Survey: Increasing Political Discontent Among Women, Youth, and Academics

Part of the statistical results of a government survey titled 'The Fourth Wave of Values and Attitudes of Iranians,' which claims to have interviewed 15,000 people across 33 provinces, indicates that women and youth have greater dissatisfaction with the political situation in the country compared to men and the older generation. According to the newspaper Ham-Mihan, participants' responses to the question 'How has the political situation changed compared to five years ago?' were categorized based on gender, age, income, education, and place of residence. The findings of this government study show a significant increase in public dissatisfaction with the political situation over the past 20 years, with 'over 60% of society dissatisfied with the political situation in the country.' According to this report, the level of dissatisfaction 'was 41.9% in 2003, and in 2015 it decreased significantly to 22.2%, but this figure has risen to 60.2% in 2023.' The highest dissatisfaction is among those with university education or those with an income level above 18 million tomans per month. Additionally, residents of towns have a greater belief in the 'deterioration' of the political situation in the past five years compared to those in provincial centers and villages. Geographically, the highest percentage of dissatisfaction with the political situation belongs to Alborz province (74.5%), West Azerbaijan (72.3%), Hamadan (66.8%), Kurdistan (65.6%), and Tehran (63.8%). The level of dissatisfaction is only below the 50% average in two provinces, South Khorasan (45.2%) and Qom (46.4%), while in 29 provinces the dissatisfaction rate exceeds 50%. Regarding the assessment of political satisfaction in the coming years, 'over 55% of participants in 2023 believe that the political situation will worsen in the next five years, whereas this prediction was much lower at 22.2% in 2015.' This analytical report, despite stating that the 'political situation' mentioned in the question is vague and general, attributes the political dissatisfaction of the people to the 'mindset of respondents' to the nationwide protests of 2022 based on gender, generational, and provincial classifications. According to this report, although the National Research Institute of Culture, Art, and Communications unveiled the 'Fourth Wave of the National Survey of Values and Attitudes of Iranians' last winter, this report has not yet been made available to the public. Nonetheless, the Social Research and Data Mining Center has obtained the statistical data of this nationwide survey through researchers and compared it with previous waves of the survey and published it. Additionally, there has been a 48% increase in traffic accidents, with 169 fatalities in the past week. Half of the doctors in Iran are inclined to emigrate, and despite warnings, the migration of doctors continues, with media criticism of the lack of changes in the 'decisions' of officials.