Influence of home country push factors on intention to migrate among Iraqi medical doctors

The migration of talented human resources from one country to another has become a concern worldwide. This study aims to investigate the effects of economic, political, and social push factors specifically economic instability, financial difficulties, political instability, corruption, family well-being, and life dissatisfaction on the intention of medical doctors to migrate in the context of Iraq. This study also aims to examine the mediating effect of psychological distress. Using a cross-sectional survey design, this study gathers data from a sample of 460 medical doctors working in private and public hospitals in Iraq. The Partial Least Square ( PLS ) path modelling was used to test the direct and indirect hypotheses. The findings revealed that financial difficulties and economic instability has a positive relationship with the intention to migrate, whilst political instability, corruption, life dissatisfaction and family well-being has a negative and insignificant relationship with the intention to migrate. Meanwhile, financial difficulties, economic instability, political instability, and corruption has a positive relationship with psychological distress, which in turn positively related to intention to migrate. Family well-being also has a positive and significant effect on psychological distress, whilst life dissatisfaction has negative and insignificant direct effect on psychological distress. The findings also revealed the full mediating effect of psychological distress on the relationship between financial difficulties, economic instability, political instability, corruption, and family well-being with the intention to migrate. However, the mediating effect of psychological distress on the relationship between life dissatisfaction and the intention to migrate is insignificant. This study offers insights on the mechanism that can be used by human resource managers and policymakers to improve the psychological state of medical doctors in Iraq to mitigate the migration among them. Finally, the limitations of the study were identified along with suggestions for future research.