Content uploaded by Peter Mcdonald
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Peter Mcdonald on Jul 06, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
DEMOGRAPHY AND SOCIOLOGY PROGRAM
RESEARCH SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
CHANGES IN FAMILY, FERTILITY BEHAVIOR
AND ATTITUDES IN IRAN
Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi
Peter McDonald
Meimanat Hossein Chavoshi
Working Papers in
Demography
No. 88
August 2003
Working Papers in Demography No. 88
CHANGES IN FAMILY, FERTILITY BEHAVIOR AND ATTITUDES
IN IRAN
*
Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi
1
Peter McDonald
2
Meimanat Hossein Chavoshi
3
Keywords: Fertility transition in Iran, marriage cohorts, birth cohorts, marriage,
family, attitudes, fertility preferences, gender roles
Abstract
The Islamic Republic of Iran has experienced a phenomenal fertility decline in recent years.
The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has declined from around 7.0 births per woman in 1979 at the
time of the Revolution to around 2.1 in 2000. The fertility decline has been pervasive being
observed in all provinces and rural and urban areas of Iran. The decline commenced in the
mid-1980s, a few years before the revival of an official family planning program in 1989.
Although, the family planning program evidently contributed to an acceleration of the
decline from the late 1980s, the program itself can be considered to be a response to the
demand for smaller family size observed by the mid-1980s. This gives rise to a
consideration of how family relationships and values have changed in Iran over the last two
decades? How have successive cohorts of Iranian women perceived marriage and family?
How have family transformations changed the formation of marriage, marital timing, spouse
choice, living arrangements and the number and spacing of children? In other words, how
have changes of attitudes affected fertility behaviors in Iran?
Drawing on a recently conducted survey, the Iran Fertility Transition Survey (IFTS), we
argue that the Iranian fertility decline has been due to social change at both the macro
(societal) and micro (family/individual) levels. The paper will first examine fertility levels
and trends in Iran as a whole. We then focus on the four selected provinces of Gilan, Sistan
& Baluchistan, West Azarbaijan, and Yazd covered in the IFTS considering both fertility
trends and changes in family, fertility behavior and attitudes of married women in Iran.
* This paper was prepared while the first author was a Visiting Scholar at the University Center for
International Studies (UCIS) of the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. An earlier version of
the paper was presented at the conference on Institutions, Ideologies and Agency: Family Change in the
Middle East and Diaspora, April 10-13, 2003, UNC at Chapel Hill. The findings of the paper are based on the
Iran Fertility Transition Survey undertaken by Ababsi-Shavazi and McDonald, and supported by the Wellcome
Trust. Generous support from Bahram Delavar, Director General, Family Health Department of the Iran
Ministry of Health, kind help from Taghi Azad-Armaki, and valuable comments from Arland Thornton are
gratefully acknowledged.
1
Assistant Professor and Head, Department of Demography, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of
Tehran, Tehran, Iran. Email: mabbasi@ut.ac.ir
2
Professor and Head, Demography and Sociology Program, The Australian National University, Canberra
ACT 0200, Australia
3
Senior Officer, Population Data Unit, Ministry of Health, Iran.
2 Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Peter McDonald and Meimanat Hossein Chavoshi
Introduction
The Islamic Republic of Iran has experienced a phenomenal fertility decline in recent years.
The TFR decreased from around 7.7 in 1966 (Amani, 1970) to around 6.0 in 1976, then rose
again to 7.0 in 1980. Despite the approval of family planning methods by Ayatollah
Khomeini in 1979, the pre-revolutionary family planning program was suspended
immediately after the revolution (Mehryar et al. 1998; Mirzaie 1998; Aghajanian 1995;
Aghajanian & Mehryar 1999). Although, no specific population policy was introduced after
the revolution, the new government adopted a pro-natalist approach. The legal minimum age
at marriage for girls and boys was reduced from 15 and 18 to 13 and 15 years, respectively
(Azimi 1981)
4
. The War with Iraq also created a pro-natalist atmosphere by which families
were encouraged to have more children (Abbasi-Shavazi et al. 2002). Despite the post-
revolutionary, pro-natalist ideology, census own-children estimates show that fertility
started to fall again by the mid-1980s, a few years before the revival of the government
family planning program in 1989. The TFR declined from 6.8 in 1984 to 6.3 in 1986, and
further to around 5.5 in 1988. From 1989, the TFR fell sharply dropping from 5.5 in 1988 to
around 2.8 in 1996, more than a 50 per cent decline in 8 years. The own-children estimates
of fertility for Iran based on the 2000 Iran Demographic and Health Survey (IDHS) show
that the TFR has continued to decline approaching replacement level (2.26) during the
period 1998–2000.
Fertility decline has been pervasive being observed in all 28 provinces and rural and urban
areas of Iran. Four developed provinces, Gilan, Semnan, Tehran and Isfahan, had reached
below-replacement level fertility by 1996 (Abbasi-Shavazi 2001a). The own-children
estimates for the three-year period, 1998–2000, from the Iran Demographic and Health
Survey indicated that the TFR was below 2.0 in eight provinces, and 18 provinces had
fertility rates between 2 and 3 births per woman. The highest provincial TFR in 1998–2000
(4.6) was that of Sistan & Baluchistan province (Abbasi-Shavazi 2002a).
The fertility decline clearly accelerated with the re-commencement of the government
family planning program in 1989. The contraceptive prevalence rate rose from 49 per cent in
1989 to around 75 per cent in 2000, and the gap in fertility between urban and rural areas
has also been narrowed considerably (Mehryar et al. 1998; Mehryar et al. 2001). However,
given the fact that the onset of decline occurred a few years before the revival of the official
family planning program in 1989 (Ladier-Fouladi 1996; Abbasi Shavazi 2000a; 2001b,c;
2002a,b), the question has risen as to whether other factors such as social change and
transformation of attitudes toward family and fertility paved the way for the success of the
family planning program and the phenomenal fertility decline in Iran in recent years. There
is evidence of profound shifts in attitudes toward family-related behaviors in much of the
world (Morgan and Waite 1987; Thornton and Freedman 1982) and evidence suggests that
changing attitudes toward family life have played a pivotal role in demographic trends
(Axinn and Thornton, 1993; Thornton 1989; Thornton and Young-Demarco 2001; Thornton
and Freedman 1982).
4
Marriage for girls aged 9 to 12 could only be possible subject to their physical ability, medical approval, and
legal permission from the court.
Changes in Family, Fertility Behavior and Attitudes in Iran
3
This paper aims to examine women’s reproductive behavior as well as attitudes toward
family and fertility in Iran. The focus of the paper will be on four selected provinces of
Gilan, Sistan & Baluchistan, West Azarbaijan and Yazd covered in the 2002 Iran Fertility
Transition Survey. Among the questions to be addressed are: How do women in
contemporary Iran perceive marriage and childbearing? How do these attitudes vary across
regions and social groups? Have attitudes of women towards marriage, family and
childbearing changed in recent years? If so, how far have these changes contributed to the
fertility decline in Iran? More importantly, if attitudes have changed, how and why did they
change?
Data
Various data sources are used in this paper. First, the 1986 and 1996 Censuses and the 2000
Iran Demographic and Health Survey (IDHS) are used to provide estimates of fertility levels
and trends over the last three decades. Second, the 2002 Iran Fertility Transition Survey
(IFTS) is used to document changes in attitudes to family and fertility in four selected
provinces. The IDHS is based on a representative sample of households throughout the
country. The sample included women in 113,913 households in 28 provinces (plus the city
of Tehran). The survey covered around 4000 households in each province (2000 households
in rural and 2000 households in urban areas). The household response rate was 97.9 per
cent. Within a total of 111,090 households, interviewers contacted 91,653 ever-married
women aged 10–49 years, and were able to complete the interview with 90,740 women. The
response rate for ever-married women was 98.9 per cent. The preliminary evaluation of the
survey indicated a high quality data collection and the accuracy of the various demographic
measures (Ministry of Health and Medical Education 2002).
The main data source for this study, however, is the 2002 Iran Fertility Transition Survey
(IFTS) supported by the Wellcome Trust and conducted with the collaboration of the first
and second author under the auspices of the University of Tehran and the Australian
National University. The aim of this survey was to assess recent trends and differences in
fertility and associated social changes in order to understand the phenomenal fertility
decline in Iran. The IFTS re-interviewed women who had been interviewed in the IDHS and
was conducted in four provinces of Iran during April-May 2002, 18 months after the IDHS.
The criteria for the selection of the provinces will be explained in the next paragraph. The
IDHS sampling frame was used to select 50 per cent of women who were interviewed in the
four selected provinces of Iran at the time of the IDHS. Around 5190 randomly selected
married-women aged 15–49 were re-interviewed.
The IFTS covered the four provinces of Sistan & Baluchistan, West Azarbaijan, Gilan and
Yazd. Several reasons justified the selection of the provinces. First, these provinces have
displayed very different fertility levels during the period, 1972–1996. A comparison of
fertility levels of all provinces with the national average revealed that Sistan & Baluchistan
and West Azarbaijan had higher fertility as compared to the total population, while Gilan
and Yazd displayed considerably lower fertility than the national level (Abbasi-Shavazi
2000a, b, 2002b). Second, socio-economic characteristics such as literacy, employment, and
access to electricity and safe water vary markedly across these provinces. Sistan &
Baluchistan province (located in the south-eastern part of Iran and sharing borders with
4 Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Peter McDonald and Meimanat Hossein Chavoshi
Afghanistan and Pakistan) stands out with the lowest level of socio-economic development,
while Gilan and Yazd approach the highest levels of socio-economic development in the
country. Third, there exist substantial ethnic variations among the selected provinces. For
example, Sistan & Baluchistan province is populated mainly by Baluchi, while West
Azarbaijan (located in the northwest of Iran and sharing borders with Turkey and Iraq)
contains two large ethnic groups namely Turks and Kurds. The people living in the two
other provinces are mainly Persians. Furthermore, a considerable proportion of the
population in both Sistan & Baluchistan and West Azarbaijan are Sunni Muslims, while the
population in Yazd and Gilan are predominantly Shiites. Thus comparisons between the
fertility behavior of different ethnic groups and Shiite-Sunni Muslims would be possible,
although the close overlap of ethnicity and religion causes difficulties in identifying their
separate effects. The other reason for this selection is that the selected provinces are
geographically located in different parts of Iran; Gilan located in the north, West Azarbaijan
in the northwest, Yazd in the centre and Sistan & Baluchistan in the southeast of the country.
It should also be noted that the two provinces of Gilan and Yazd, despite their relatively
similar socio-economic characteristics, experience different social values and attitudes.
People in Yazd are known for being ‘religious’ while people in Gilan are more ‘liberal’ in
terms of values and attitudes. A study of Iranian Values and Attitudes (Ministry of Culture
and Islamic Guidance 2002) showed that people in Yazd placed more emphasis on religion
in their daily life than Iranians as a whole, as well as people in the developed provinces of
Isfahan and Tehran. Selection of a diverse set of provinces also allows testing of the
hypothesis of the importance of social inclusion and allows for consideration of varying
institutional settings. Some measures of the variability of the provinces are shown in Table 1.
Table 1 Characteristics of the women interviewed in the four provinces included in
IFTS 2002
Province
%
Female literacy
(15–49)
%
FP use
(2002)
TFR
1998–2000
N
Interviewed
1
Gilan
73.9 79.3 1.67 1274
Sistan & Baluchistan
41.9 47.5 4.64 1300
West Azarbaijan
49.8 79.0 2.52 1368
Yazd
81.0 79.7 2.27 1239
Note:
1 Number of women interviewed in the 2002 Iran Fertility Transition Survey.
The IFTS questionnaire included around 100 questions on various demographic and socio-
economic characteristics as well as attitudes of women to children, marriage, women’s
employment and gender equity within and outside the family. Some characteristics of
husbands (place of birth/residence, occupation, language, religion) were also asked in the
questionnaire. The interviewers were selected from among Health Officers (behvarz) who
have been working in Health Houses (khanah-e Behdasht) for several years most of whom
had participated in the IDHS data collection, and thus were familiar with the field, and had
accurate knowledge of the households and respondents (particularly in rural areas). The
interviewers were trained by the first, and third authors at workshops held in each province.
Field supervisors from the Ministry of Health were present in the field at the time of data
Changes in Family, Fertility Behavior and Attitudes in Iran
5
collection to supervise the interviewer teams and to check the accuracy of the data. The
preliminary evaluation of the data indicates a high quality of data collection and accuracy of
the various demographic measures. The survey is the most significant undertaken in recent
years to explain the fall of fertility in Iran.
Methodology
Social changes can be studied with two distinct forms of period or cohort approaches. Period
effects are the result of societal changes influencing all age and cohort groups similarly at
one point in time, while marriage and birth cohort effects are defined as the result of social
changes that affect only the individuals of one particular birth or marriage cohort (Thornton
and Lin 1994:15). There are some difficulties in studying social change using one cross-
sectional survey, and particularly compared to having multiple cross-sectional studies.
However, with a cross-sectional study, it is possible to categorize people by their year of
birth or year of marriage, and then see what their experience was at the same age or life
course transition stage. For example, by categorizing people by year of birth, it is possible to
see the number of years of education, age at marriage, and work before marriage of the
various birth cohorts. Since age is roughly controlled in this case, we can conclude that any
differences in education, marriage, work, and attitudes toward childbearing across birth
cohorts can be the product of social change.
While the data used in this paper provide many opportunities for the study of family change
in Iran, there are some limitations involved as both surveys cover only married women of
childbearing ages. Thornton (1994:419) noted that sample limitations in one cross-sectional
study introduce truncation biases of marriage ages across the respective birth and marriage
cohorts presented in the study. This is illustrated in Table 2.
Table 2 Ages at marriage that can be represented within different birth and
marriage Cohorts in a sample of ever-married women aged 15–49 in 2000
Birth cohort Possible ages at marriage* Marriage cohort Possible ages at marriage*
1951–55
0–49
1961–65
0–14
1956–60
0–44
1966–70
0–19
1961–65
0–39
1971–75
0–24
1966–70
0–34
1976–80
0–29
1970–75
0–29
1981–85
0–34
1976–80
0–24
1986–90
5–39
1981–85
0–19
1990–95
10–44
1996–00
15–49
*
Theoretical marriage ages
As can be seen from Table 2, the possible ages at marriage of women who were eligible for
inclusion in the study vary by birth and marriage cohort. Over time, from the oldest to the
youngest, birth cohorts become increasingly limited to women married at younger ages. The
marriage cohort truncation problem works in the opposite direction. As marriage cohorts go
back in time, the cohorts become increasingly limited to women married at younger ages. If
data are tabulated according to both birth and marriage cohorts and birth cohorts are
6 Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Peter McDonald and Meimanat Hossein Chavoshi
approximately matched to marriage cohorts in calendar time, the range of the results
provides some bounds on the magnitudes of the trends observed because the birth cohorts
and marriage cohorts are biased (in terms of age at marriage) in opposite directions
(Thornton, Chang and Lin, 1994:150). Furthermore, where marriage ages are concentrated
in a relatively narrow range and that range is covered by the possible ages at marriage for
the birth year or marriage year cohort, then any bias will be small.
As the mean age at marriage has been approximately 20 years, we compare results for
marriage cohorts with results for birth cohorts 20 years earlier. The birth and marriage
cohorts are defined to represent different periods of social change in Iran.
Table 3 Distribution of marriage and birth cohorts by province, IFTS 2002
Province Total
Cohort and period
Gilan
West
Azarbaijan
Sistan &
Baluchistan
Yazd No. %
Before 1980s
363 389 255 428 1435 29
1980s
392 429 336 376 1533 32
After 1980s
507 496 428 435 1866 39
Marriage
Cohort
Total
1262 1314 1019 1239 4834 100
Before 1960s
366 362 265 350 1343 26
1960s
451 489 433 415 1788 34
After 1960s
460 517 598 484 2059 40
Birth
Cohort
Total
1277 1368 1296 1249 5190 100
Note: Around 6.9 per cent of the total women did not report their age at marriage and they were considered as
missing.
The selected periods and the numbers in each cohort are shown in Table 3. As can be seen,
the distribution of numbers across the three birth cohorts is similar to the distribution across
the three marriage cohorts.
The different periods of social change in Iran represented by the three time periods (of
marriage) are as follows:
Before 1980s: During this period, the first national family planning program was
implemented by the Shah, the legal minimum age at marriage for boys and girls was
increased, and various programs were implemented to improve the status of women in the
society.
1980s: This is the first decade following the Islamic revolution when the country
experienced a phenomenal socio-political change. It is also the period of the Iran-Iraq War.
The family planning program was suspended, the war situation changed peoples’ lives, a
rationing system was introduced to meet people’s basic needs, and the legal minimum age at
marriage decreased. On the other hand, the egalitarian nature of the revolution led to
considerable improvements in education and health systems, and there were major changes
in rural areas of Iran.
Changes in Family, Fertility Behavior and Attitudes in Iran
7
After 1980s: The period from 1990 onwards was more pragmatic in the approach to social
and economic issues. The government implemented many infrastructure projects in order to
improve the economic situation of the country. The family planning program was revived
during this period and the Islamic government supported the family planning program and
provided contraceptives to people throughout the country (Abbasi-Shavazi et al. 2002). The
election of the Khatami government in 1997 heralded a democratization period when
various political groups formed and the society experienced profound shifts on political
issues. Freedom of speech and expression of different values and attitudes became more
prevalent and restrictions on peoples’ personal and individual behavior became relatively
more limited.
Fertility levels and trends in the four selected provinces
Studies have shown that the fertility decline in Iran has been inclusive and pervasive over
the last decades, that is, all provinces and rural and urban areas of Iran have experienced a
sharp decline in fertility in recent years (Abbasi-Shavazi 2000a,b; 2002a,b; Mehryar et al;
2001; Ministry of Health and Medical Education 2002). In this section, we demonstrate the
trend of fertility in the four selected provinces for the period 1972–2002 (Figure 1).
Figure 1 Fertility trends in the four selected provinces during 1972–2002l
Source: The 1986 and 1996 Censuses, IDHS 2000 and IFTS 2002
The four provinces represent different levels of fertility in Iran. Gilan has had low fertility as
compared with other provinces over the period 1972–2002, while Sistan & Baluchistan has
had the highest fertility among the four provinces. The other two provinces of Yazd and
West Azarbaijan, in order, have had fertility between the lowest and highest fertility level
over the period. The trend of fertility in the four provinces is, however, similar to the
national level: a rise of fertility after the revolution followed by a stall immediately after the
8 Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Peter McDonald and Meimanat Hossein Chavoshi
revolution, onset of fertility decline by mid-1980s, acceleration of the decline during the
1990s, and finally deceleration of fertility decline by the late 1990s.
Cohort fertility in the four provinces
In this section, we examine the mean number of children ever born for the various cohorts
according to the different periods of social change in Iran (Table 4). Comparing the
marriage and birth cohorts, there is a close similarity in Gilan for all three periods but, in the
other provinces, for the two later time periods when fertility had fallen, the means for the
marriage cohorts are significantly lower than the means for the birth cohorts. As Gilan has
an older age at marriage than the other three provinces (see below), this suggests that the 20-
year gap used between the marriage and the birth cohorts fits Gilan better than it fits the
other provinces. A shorter interval between the birth and marriage cohorts in these three
other provinces would have brought the means closer together.
Table 4 Mean Number of children ever born for marriage and birth cohorts by
province, IFTS 2002
Province
Marriage
Cohort
Mean Birth Cohort Mean
Before 1980s
5.1
Before 1960s
4.9
1980s
3.2
1960s
3.2
Gilan
After 1980s
1.5
After 1960s
1.6
Before 1980s
6.9
Before 1960s
6.7
1980s
4.1
1960s
4.6
West
Azarbaijan
After 1980s
1.9
After 1960s
2.1
Before 1980s
7.7
Before 1960s
8.0
1980s
5.5
1960s
6.1
Sistan &
Baluchistan
After 1980s
2.3
After 1960s
3.0
Before 1980s
6.1
Before 1960s
6.1
1980s
3.7
1960s
4.1
Yazd
After 1980s
1.5
After 1960s
1.9
Source: Iran Fertility Transition Survey 2002
As expected, mean number of children ever born has declined for all cohorts. The very high
levels of fertility for the earliest cohort are generally consistent with the cross-sectional
estimates of fertility shown in Figure 1. Across the cohorts, the provincial differences
observed in Figure 1 across time are also confirmed. The level of fertility of all marriage
cohorts in Sistan & Baluchistan was much higher than the levels for other provinces, while
marriage cohorts in Gilan have experienced lower fertility than their counterparts in other
provinces.
Nuptiality change and fertility decline
It is generally assumed that early marriage is associated with a high proportion eventually
marrying. Rising mean ages at marriage and rising percentages single are, on the other hand,
Changes in Family, Fertility Behavior and Attitudes in Iran
9
associated with declines in period measures of fertility such as the birth rate. Later marriage
reduces the total duration of fecund exposure to sexual activity, and shifts it to the older ages
of lower fecundity (Smith 1983: 476–80; VandenHeuvel & McDonald 1994:69). There is an
inverse relationship between the number of children ever born and age at marriage at the
level of individual couples (Knodel 1983:78). In this section, we will first discuss the
change in nuptiality for Iran in general, and then for the four provinces.
Table 5 Female Singulate Mean Age at Marriage (SMAM) and percentage of
women aged 20–24 never married, 1976 to 1996, Iran by selected provinces
FSMAM % Never married, aged 20–24
Province
1976 1986 1996 1976 1986 1996
IRAN
19.5 19.7 22.0 21.4 22.0 39.3
Gilan
21.2 21.5 23.4 32.5 40.6 48.8
Sistan &
Baluchistan
18.4 18.5 20.5
12.6 16.2 28.0
West Azarbaijan
20.0 20.8 22.2 21.8 31.0 41.1
Yazd
19.5 19.5 20.9 12.1 12.1 30.0
Note: FSMAM = Female Singulate Mean Age at Marriage
Sources: Statistical Centre of Iran, published data from the 1976, 1986 and 1996 censuses.
Age at marriage has increased in Iran over the last two decades. The extent of change was
greater during the period 1986–1996 than in the earlier decade, 1976–1986. Table 5 shows
the female singulate mean age at marriage (SMAM) and the proportion of women aged 20–
24 who were never married during 1976–1996 for Iran and the selected provinces. As can be
seen from the table, SMAM for Iran increased slightly from 19.5 years in 1976 to 19.7 years
in 1986, but then increased sharply to 22 years during the period, 1986–1996. Interestingly,
the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has consistently encouraged early marriage
since 1979. During the decade after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, young couples were
offered many incentives for early marriage. The legal minimum age at marriage was
reduced from 15 to 13 for girls after the Revolution.
Despite the encouragement of early marriage from 1980, age at first marriage increased
slightly during this period. The proportion of women aged 20–24 who had never married
rose moderately from 21.4 per cent in 1976 to 22.0 per cent in 1986. However, there was a
sharp increase in this proportion to 39.3 per cent in the period to 1996. Significant changes
took place in marriage patterns in both rural and urban areas of Iran during the period 1986–
1996. It should also be noted that there was little difference in ages at marriage for women
in urban and rural areas. In rural areas, the female singulate mean age at first marriage
increased from 19.7 in 1986 to 22.1 in 1996, whereas, in the urban areas, the figure rose
from 20.1 to 22.0 (Abbasi-Shavazi 2000b). Like Iran as a whole, all four provinces
experienced a small increase in the proportion never-married during 1976–1986, but
recorded a large increase during 1986–1996. In this period, the proportion of women aged
20–24 who had never married almost doubled in all the provinces. Similarly, all provinces
revealed a moderate increase in SMAM during 1976–86 (except Yazd), followed by a sharp
rise during 1986–1996. However, the extent of change was different from one province to
10 Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Peter McDonald and Meimanat Hossein Chavoshi
another with Yazd showing the smallest increases. Despite the increase in mean age at
marriage, universality is one of the major characteristics of the Iranian marriage pattern, as
the vast majority of women marry by age 35, and only a small proportion of women are
never married by age 49.
Figure 2 uses IFTS data to show the mean age at marriage for marriages occurring in each
year from 1966 to 1999 in each province. The sharp rise in the 1960s evidently reflects the
bias in the sample as described above. Marriage ages appear to have risen during the 1970s.
This can be attributed to the population policy and the family planning program during the
late years of the Shah’s regime during which time several steps were taken to improve the
status of women. These include an increase in the legal age at marriage for both males and
females, and also an increase in female labour force participation. In all provinces other than
Gilan, there is evidence of a fall in age at marriage in the early years following the
revolution when there were government incentives to marry early and when the war may
have induced earlier marriage. Marriage ages began to rise again in the late 1980s and the
rise has continued ever since gaining momentum from 1997 onwards.
One of the questions raised earlier was the extent to which age at marriage has contributed
to the fertility decline in Iran. Figure 3 shows the cross-sectional relationship between age at
marriage and fertility in the four provinces. It is evident that from the late 1980s onwards,
age at marriage was rising as fertility was falling.
To what extent has the change in age at marriage contributed to the fertility decline in Iran
and the provinces? Abbasi-Shavazi (2000b) has decomposed the changes in total fertility
rate from 1976 to 1996 into the components of changes in nuptiality and marital fertility for
Iran by province as well as for rural and urban areas. He found that total fertility increased
from 6.09 in 1976 to 6.24 in 1986, a difference of 0.14. This increase was due to an increase
in marital fertility (0.22) offset by nuptiality change (-0.07). The total fertility rate fell
substantially by 3.71 (births per woman) from 1986 to 1996. Most of the fall was due to the
decline in marital fertility (3.11) with 0.60 being due to nuptiality change. In other words, 84
per cent of the fertility decline was due to the change in marital fertility and only 16 per cent
to nuptiality change. The results for each of the four provinces were identical to those for the
total population of Iran. Thus, the task of explanation of the substantial decline in fertility in
Iran and in each of the four provinces becomes largely a question of why fertility within
marriage has fallen. The following section provides a preliminary assessment of the
association between the fertility trend and the transformation of attitudes toward family and
fertility.
Changes in Family, Fertility Behavior and Attitudes in Iran
11
Figure 2 Mean age at first marriage by province 1966–1999, IFTS 2002
Figure 3 Mean age at first marriage and fertility by province 1972–2000, IFTS 2002
0
2
4
6
8
10
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
TFR
15
20
25
Age at marriage/years
Sistan W. Azar Yazd Gilan
Linear (Sistan) Linear (W. Azar) Linear (Yazd) Linear (Gilan)
TFR Level
Mean age at marriage
Source: The 1986 and 1996 Censuses, IDHS 2000 and IFTS 2002
12 Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Peter McDonald and Meimanat Hossein Chavoshi
Selected social and attitudinal changes
The following analysis considers cohort trends in selected indicators of social and attitudinal
change. This is a preliminary investigation of factors that may have been associated with the
fertility decline in Iran. At this stage, we are seeking measures that show strong trends
across cohorts that are consistent with the timing of the fall in fertility and are evident in
each of the four provinces, albeit with appropriate variation across the provinces. The
measures chosen are related to theories of fertility decline and were included in the survey in
this context. Clearly, a more thorough, multivariate analysis will be required subsequent to
the findings of this paper.
Education
It is very conventional to associate changes in education levels of women with changes in
fertility levels. So conventional, in fact, that education plays a part in almost all theoretical
approaches to fertility transition. Education is said to provide access to modern ways of
thinking, to provide confidence to engage with the modern world, to reduce infant and child
mortality, to stimulate higher levels of gender equity within couple relationships and to
promote labor force participation of women in the cash economy hence raising the
opportunity cost of having children. Education of women also may lead to a greater
emphasis on their part on the ‘quality’ of children as distinct from the quantity of children.
Finally, education is a broad indicator of societal modernization. As education levels
increase, the educated woman is very likely to be married to an educated man and to be
living in an educated society. As already described, the egalitarian nature of the Islamic
Revolution led to widespread education of women in Iran especially in rural areas where
education for women had been neglected.
Table 6 shows the change in education levels of women across birth and marriage cohorts.
Based on the analysis of fertility above, we would be looking for a considerable change
from cohort to cohort and in every province. This is precisely what the table shows.
Education levels change dramatically from one cohort to the next for both marriage and
birth cohorts and for all provinces. The change also extends across the education distribution.
It is not simply a shift from illiteracy to primary education; there are also large shifts at the
highest education levels as well.
Differences in education levels between provinces match the fertility differences with the
exception that the relatively high education level of women in Yazd, especially in the
earliest cohort is not matched by lower fertility. As indicated below, Yazd has family-
religious values that may have counter-balanced the effects of its higher education levels.
Changes in Family, Fertility Behavior and Attitudes in Iran
13
Table 6 Percentage distribution of birth cohorts by level of education and province,
IFTS 2002
Level of education
Provinces
Illiterate Primary Secondary
Diploma
and Higher
Total
Before 1980s
57.9 24.3 6.5 11.3 100.0
1980s
22.8 29.0 28.9 19.3 100.0 Gilan
After 1980s
5.6 30.8 34.8 28.8 100.0
Before 1980s
74.5 16.7 4.8 4.0 100.0
1980s
47.7 26.8 18.0 7.5 100.0
West
Azarbaijan
After 1980s
23.8 34.8 27.3 14.1 100.0
Before 1980s
71.3 17.3 7.3 4.0 100.0
1980s
52.0 27.3 12.5 8.2 100.0
Sistan &
Baluchistan
After 1980s
42.3 27.0 15.6 15.1 100.0
Before 1980s
31.3 58.5 3.8 6.4 100.0
1980s
13.2 54.2 16.9 15.6 100.0
Marriage cohort
Yazd
After 1980s
3.8 34.9 22.8 38.5 100.0
Before 1960s
55.6 22.0 6.2 16.3 100.0
1960s
22.9 31.4 25.7 20.0 100.0 Gilan
After 1960s
6.6 30.7 38.2 24.4 100.0
Before 1960s
76.5 14.2 3.2 6.2 100.0
1960s
50.2 26.8 15.9 7.1 100.0
West
Azarbaijan
After 1960s
26.2 34.3 27.6 12.0 100.0
Before 1960s
78.4 15.4 1.7 4.5 100.0
1960s
60.0 19.0 12.1 8.8 100.0
Sistan &
Baluchistan
After 1960s
50.7 27.6 12.7 9.0 100.0
Before 1960s
34.9 51.9 2.8 10.4 100.0
1960s
13.4 59.4 12.4 14.7 100.0
Birth cohorts
Yazd
After 1960s
5.4 37.7 24.6 32.3 100.0
Attitudes to age at marriage
Respondents were asked their views about the lowest age at marriage and the highest age at
marriage that would be appropriate for women and for men in their society. The results are
shown in Table 7. Here, the attitude is a current (2002) attitude and it is evident that there is
not much variation across cohorts. From the perspective of theory, we might expect that
younger women, particularly given the trends in education, would favour later ages at
marriage than older women. If their preferences then carried weight, then fertility may fall
because of later age at marriage. A preference for later age at marriage might also indicate
the perceived availability of alternatives to marriage in the short to medium term, in
particular, paid employment.
14 Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Peter McDonald and Meimanat Hossein Chavoshi
Table 7 Minimum and maximum mean age at marriage for boys and girls by birth
and marriage cohort, IFTS 2002
Province
Minimum
for girls
Maximum
for girls
Minimum
for boys
Maximum
for boys
Before 1980s
19.5 23.3 22.8 26.8
1980s
19.8 23.8 23.2 27.4 Gilan
After 1980s
20.2 24.4 24.1 28.4
Before 1980s
18.8 23.1 22.9 27.2
1980s
19.1 23.5 23.0 27.7
West
Azarbaijan
After 1980s
19.2 23.8 23.3 27.9
Before 1980s
17.6 21.3 21.7 25.6
1980s
17.5 20.9 21.6 25.9
Sistan &
Baluchistan
After 1980s
17.7 21.2 21.8 26.0
Before 1980s
18.5 22.4 22.6 26.9
1980s
18.6 22.8 23.1 27.5
Marriage Cohort
Yazd
After 1980s
19.0 23.5 23.6 28.2
Before 1960s
19.5 23.3 22.9 26.9
1960s
19.8 23.9 23.3 27.6 Gilan
After 1960s
20.2 24.3 23.9 28.2
Before 1960s
18.8 23.2 22.7 27.1
1960s
18.9 23.3 23.0 27.8
West
Azarbaijan
After 1960s
19.2 23.7 23.2 27.8
Before 1960s
17.4 21.1 21.5 25.5
1960s
17.2 20.7 21.4 25.4
Sistan &
Baluchistan
After 1960s
17.0 20.4 21.1 25.4
Before 1960s
18.6 22.6 22.7 27.1
1960s
18.5 22.5 22.9 27.2
Birth Cohort
Yazd
After 1960s
19.0 23.4 23.6 28.1
Only small rises in preferred ages at marriage are apparent across cohorts. This can be
interpreted to mean either that attitudes have not changed across time or that they have
changed cross-sectionally for all cohorts. At least, the data show that the older generation
and the younger generation are presently in strong agreement about appropriate ages at
marriage. The older generation does not have an expectation that their daughters should
marry at very young ages. Nevertheless, the preferred marriage ages remain relatively young
by international standards given the levels of education. This may partly be because work
opportunities in the modern economy for young women, even young educated women, are
very meager presenting little or no alternative to relatively early marriage. Thus, unlike
some countries especially in East Asia and particularly in Japan (Tsuya and Mason 1995),
the fertility decline does not appear to have been related to a social change in which young
women remain single longer and become involved in employment outside the household.
Differences by province, on the other hand, do match the fertility differences with the
Changes in Family, Fertility Behavior and Attitudes in Iran
15
exception that Yazd, again, appears to have early marriage preferences compared to the
ranking of its fertility.
Relationship between husband and wife
Cousin marriage has been very common in Iran. If the incidence of cousin marriage were to
change across time, this would suggest that there were new ideas about the nature of the
marriage relationship. It would suggest that family control over marriage was waning thus
providing more autonomy to the younger generation. This autonomy might then transfer to
changed fertility behaviour.
Given the huge changes in education levels across cohorts, Table 8 shows the rather
surprising result that there has been little or no change across cohorts in the incidence of
marriage with a relative. Cousin marriage stands at more than 70 per cent in Sistan and
Baluchistan. Despite its very low fertility, marriage with a relative remains very prominent
in Yazd accounting for over 40 per cent of all marriages. Thus, the fertility decline has taken
place while family arrangements about the nature of the marriage relationship have
remained unchanged.
Table 8 Distribution of marriage and birth cohorts by relationship with husband
and province, IFTS 2002
Relationship with husband
Province
Non-relative Relative Total
Before 1980s
75.5 24.5 100.00
1980s
74.1 25.9 100.00
Gilan
After 1980s
77.9 22.1 100.00
Before 1980s
69.7 30.3 100.00
1980s
62.5 37.5 100.00
West
Azarbaijan
After 1980s
68.7 31.3 100.00
Before 1980s
26.4 73.6 100.00
1980s
26.2 73.8 100.00
Sistan &
Baluchistan
After 1980s
22.9 77.1 100.00
Before 1980s
52.1 47.9 100.00
1980s
51.1 48.9 100.00
Marriage cohort
Yazd
After 1980s
57.8 42.2 100.00
Before 1960s
75.4 24.6 100.0
1960s
75.9 24.1 100.0
Gilan
After 1960s
76.8 23.2 100.0
Before 1960s
73.2 26.8 100.0
1960s
62.7 37.3 100.0
West
Azarbaijan
After 1960s
67.8 32.2 100.0
Before 1960s
25.5 74.5 100.0
1960s
25.4 74.6 100.0
Sistan &
Baluchistan
After 1960s
19.6 80.4 100.0
Before 1960s
53.0 47.0 100.0
1960s
53.3 46.7 100.0
Birth cohort
Yazd
After 1960s
54.7 45.3 100.0
16 Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Peter McDonald and Meimanat Hossein Chavoshi
Attitudes about marriage with a relative
As the above tables show a fairly close relationship between the results for birth cohorts and
the results for marriage cohorts, the remainder of the analysis will be based only on
marriage cohorts.
Table 9 Attitudes of women regarding relative marriage for boys and girls by
province and marriage cohorts, IFTS 2002
Is it better for boys to marry a relative?
Province
Marriage
cohort
Relative None relative No difference Total
Before 1980s
11.1 75.4 13.5 100.0
1980s
6.9 78.4 14.8 100.0 Gilan
After 1980s
9.3 78.5 12.3 100.0
Before 1980s
26.4 57.2 16.4 100.0
1980s
22.2 61.4 16.4 100.0
West
Azarbaijan
After 1980s
21.3 61.6 17.1 100.0
Before 1980s
63.6 13.8 22.6 100.0
1980s
61.5 18.1 20.4 100.0
Sistan &
Baluchistan
After 1980s
62.7 13.6 23.6 100.0
Before 1980s
29.6 52.9 17.5 100.0
1980s
22.7 64.3 13.1 100.0 Yazd
After 1980s
18.2 69.2 12.7 100.0
Is it better for girls to marry a relative?
Province
Marriage
cohort
Relative None relative No difference Total
Before 1980s
11.1 76.2 12.7 100.0
1980s
7.7 78.3 14.0 100.0
Gilan
After 1980s
9.3 78.5 12.3 100.0
Before 1980s
24.1 58.9 17.0 100.0
1980s
22.1 62.0 15.9 100.0
West
Azarbaijan
After 1980s
21.7 61.5 16.8 100.0
Before 1980s
63.1 13.8 23.1 100.0
1980s
62.7 17.3 20.0 100.0
Sistan &
Baluchistan
After 1980s
64.1 12.1 23.9 100.0
Before 1980s
28.9 53.7 17.4 100.0
1980s
23.6 64.3 12.2 100.0 Yazd
After 1980s
19.6 67.7 12.7 100.0
The table on attitudes towards marriage with a relative shows that a strong preference for
this type of marriage remains prevalent only in Sistan & Baluchistan, very likely reflecting
Baluchi culture. Minor changes are also observed from older to younger cohorts with regard
to attitudes towards relative marriage. However, there is little difference between cohorts in
their attitudes to marriage with a family member. Young people do not display more liberal
attitudes than the older generation. While the ‘no difference’ category makes explanation
tentative, it is interesting that attitudes to marriage with a relative seem to be running ahead
Changes in Family, Fertility Behavior and Attitudes in Iran
17
of behaviour. Thus, there is some evidence that behaviour may be modified somewhat in
this regard in the future reflecting some shift away from traditional approaches to marriage,
but, again, this change is insignificant when compared to the change in fertility. We would
conclude once again that the explanation of fertility decline cannot be sought in changes in
traditional forms of marriage arrangement, or even attitudes related to these arrangements.
The fertility decline has occurred with little change in these arrangements.
Residence after marriage
With the notable exception of Yazd, a similar conclusion can be drawn in relation to place
of residence following the marriage. The proportions of couples that lived with the extended
family have not changed across time in three of the four provinces (Table 10).
Table 10 Co-residence with relatives after marriage by province and marriage
cohorts, IFTS 2002
Living the first two years after marriage with:
Province
Marriage
cohort
woman's
relative
woman and
husband's
relative
husband's
relative
None Total
Before 1980s
5.8 4.2 59.4 30.7 100.0
1980s
8.4 3.1 61.0 27.5 100.0 Gilan
After 1980s
9.4 4.7 57.6 28.3 100.0
Before 1980s
2.5 7.1 71.3 19.1 100.0
1980s
3.6 6.2 79.1 11.2 100.0
West
Azarbaijan
After 1980s
3.2 5.7 76.9 14.2 100.0
Before 1980s
20.2 6.0 45.1 28.7 100.0
1980s
21.7 5.4 39.3 33.6 100.0
Sistan &
Baluchistan
After 1980s
24.9 7.9 42.1 25.1 100.0
Before 1980s
12.8 4.4 55.3 27.6 100.0
1980s
8.0 1.7 48.5 41.7 100.0 Yazd
After 1980s
19.2 1.8 26.2 52.8 100.0
In Yazd, there was a fairly substantial movement away from living with the extended family
after marriage but this may well be related to the prevalence of long distance migration in
Yazd Province, especially to the City of Yazd. To explain fertility decline, we are looking
for features that are replicated across all four provinces. Thus, again, changes in family
organization do not seem to have been important.
5
5
The question asked if the couple lived for at least one month with one of their husband’s or their own
relatives after marriage. If so, then they should choose options one to three accordingly, otherwise they should
choose the ‘none’ category. Thus, the high prevalence of living with relatives shown in the table does not
necessarily imply a long period of co-residence with relatives after marriage.
18 Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Peter McDonald and Meimanat Hossein Chavoshi
Preference for early marriage or continued education for girls
Table 11 shows that, across all provinces and across all marriage cohorts, there is a strong
preference that girls continue their education in preference to marrying early. The majority
(more than 70 per cent) of women of the three marriage cohorts preferred education over
marriage for girls, the exception being Yazd where women expressed more conservative
views toward marriage. This indicates a valuing of education for girls despite the fact that
this does not flow through to high rates of employment prior to marriage.
Table 11 Attitudes of women towards preference for early marriage or more
education for a girl by province and marriage cohorts, IFTS 2002
Marriage or education for girl?
Province
Marriage
cohort
Marriage Education Total
Before 1980s
30.4 69.6 100.0
1980s
26.5 73.5 100.0
After 1980s
28.2 71.8 100.0
Gilan
Total
28.3 71.7 100.0
Before 1980s
23.1 76.9 100.0
1980s
20.6 79.4 100.0
After 1980s
19.0 81.0 100.0
West
Azarbaijan
Total
20.7 79.3 100.0
Before 1980s
28.8 71.2 100.0
1980s
24.6 75.4 100.0
After 1980s
26.9 73.1 100.0
Sistan &
Baluchistan
Total
26.6 73.4 100.0
Before 1980s
45.5 54.5 100.0
1980s
46.8 53.2 100.0
After 1980s
34.8 65.2 100.0
Yazd
Total
42.2 57.8 100.0
The pattern seems to be that it is good for girls to be educated and this has flowed through to
substantial increases in levels of education for girls, but, to this point in time, it has been
mainly education for marriage and family rather than education for employment.
Nevertheless, the strong preference for education for girls has had its outcome and may have
had an impact on the status of women within the marriage. This in turn, as argued above,
may lead to lower fertility. Interestingly, Yazd, a conservative province, maintains relatively
conservative attitudes in this regard despite the fact that its education levels are actually
higher than in any of the other four provinces (see Tables 1 and 6).
Overall, as indicated, education is valued in the society even among older cohorts who were
either illiterate or less educated. This may be considered as a measure of ideational change
in the society as there are few generational differences in the provinces under scrutiny,
particularly in West Azarbaijan and Sistan & Baluchistan.
Women who believed that girls should marry early rather than continue their education, had
more-or-less traditional gender values. Most of them indicated that girls should marry early
either because they cannot find the opportunity to marry later, or they considered that the
Changes in Family, Fertility Behavior and Attitudes in Iran
19
main task of women is housekeeping. However, one third of these women, again, thought
that girls could continue their education after marriage.
Table 12 Reasons for the preference for more education for a girl, IFTS 2002
Why education is better for girls?
Provinces
Marriage
cohorts
Find more
opportunity
for marriage
Children
raring in
future
To find an
appropriate
job
Other Total
Before 1980s
12.2 7.1 68.1 12.6 100.0
1980s
13.9 8.6 69.7 7.7 100.0 Gilan
After 1980s
16.0 12.1 62.5 9.4 100.0
Before 1980s
15.8 8.2 70.6 5.3 100.0
1980s
12.5 9.1 69.1 9.2 100.0
West
Azarbaijan
After 1980s
18.5 11.2 62.3 8.0 100.0
Before 1980s
12.3 18.8 61.7 7.2 100.0
1980s
10.8 19.9 64.1 5.2 100.0
Sistan &
Baluchistan
After 1980s
11.3 24.1 60.4 4.2 100.0
Before 1980s
21.3 33.1 42.0 3.5 100.0
1980s
38.0 31.7 26.9 3.5 100.0 Yazd
After 1980s
41.0 27.5 28.4 3.1 100.0
The majority (around 70 per cent) of women who preferred education over early marriage
for girls believed that girls should continue their education to find an appropriate job in the
future (Table 12). As indicated earlier, female employment is very low in Iran (around 12
per cent). However, with the rising of education levels, occupational aspirations of girls
have risen and it is likely that Iranian society will experience major changes with regard to
women’s employment in the future. The percentages of women who considered girls should
be educated in order to find a job in the future in the three provinces of Gilan, West
Azarbaijan, and Sistan & Baluchistan were high and at a similar level. On the other hand,
compared to work, women in Yazd placed more emphasis on enhancement of marriage and
family outcomes as reasons for girl’s to pursue education, and this pattern was more evident
for the more recent cohorts compared to the oldest cohort. In Yazd, there may been an
expectation of the ‘proper’ answer to this question but this in itself has meaning. The
expression of more conservative attitudes by women in Yazd is consistent across all
indicators.
Family planning and fertility behavior
Turning now to more direct measures of fertility behavior, Table 13 shows little likely
impact on fertility of a change in the interval between marriage and first birth. The interval
is short in general and highest in Sistan & Baluchistan which has the highest level of fertility.
The longest first birth interval in the table relates to the cohort that had the highest fertility –
the oldest cohort in Sistan & Baluchistan.
The interval between marriage and first birth decreased for the marriage cohorts of 1976–80
and 1981–85 (data not shown here). This is consistent with the rise of fertility immediately
20 Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Peter McDonald and Meimanat Hossein Chavoshi
before and after the revolution (Abbasi-Shavazi 2000a, 2001b). Marriage and childbearing
was encouraged during the first decade after the revolution, legal mean age at marriage for
both girls and boys decreased, and marriage was considered as a way of keeping young boys
and girls faithful to traditional family values rather than being corrupted by ‘Western values’.
The trend in Yazd is particularly consistent with this hypothesis. The other point to be noted
here is that having the first birth is very important for families in Iran and couples are
expected to have their first child early in their life to fulfill societal and familial expectations.
Women were asked whether they were using contraceptives before their first pregnancy.
The results (Table 14) show that practice of birth control before pregnancy has changed
across cohorts with younger cohorts in Gilan and Yazd being more likely to use
contraceptives before their first birth than older cohorts.
Table 13 How long (in months) after marriage did you become pregnant?
Province
Marriage
Cohort
Mean Birth Cohort Mean
Before 1980s
10.0
Before 1960s
10.2
1980s
8.4
1960s
8.0 Gilan
After 1980s
8.7
After 1960s
9.0
Before 1980s
13.1
Before 1960s
12.8
1980s
9.8
1960s
9.9
West
Azarbaijan
After 1980s
8.7
After 1960s
9.3
Before 1980s
17.9
Before 1960s
17.7
1980s
14.3
1960s
14.6
Sistan &
Baluchistan
After 1980s
11.3
After 1960s
13.5
Before 1980s
9.6
Before 1960s
9.5
1980s
9.4
1960s
8.4 Yazd
After 1980s
11.1
After 1960s
12.1
While this change does not seem to have had much impact on the interval from marriage to
the first birth, it may be a precursor to future changes, such as a further increase in age at
first marriage or, society permitting, an increase in the employment of young women. Those
entering the early childbearing ages in the near future are part of the very large birth cohorts
born in the early 1980s.
Changes in Family, Fertility Behavior and Attitudes in Iran
21
Table 14 Distribution of women by use of contraceptives before the first birth by
marriage cohort and province, IFTS 2002
Using contraceptive before first pregnancy
Province Marriage Cohort
Yes No Total
Before 1976
5.1 94.9 100.0
1976–80
3.6 96.4 100.0
1981–85
7.3 92.7 100.0
1986–90
7.4 92.6 100.0
1991–95
17.2 82.8 100.0
1996+
24.4 75.6 100.0
Gilan
Total
10.9 89.1 100.0
Before 1976
2.7 97.3 100.0
1976–80
1.3 98.7 100.0
1981–85
2.2 97.8 100.0
1986–90
8.3 91.7 100.0
1991–95
10.9 89.1 100.0
1996+
18.0 82.0 100.0
West
Azarbaijan
Total
7.2 92.8 100.0
Before 1976
3.1 96.9 100.0
1976–80
4.1 95.9 100.0
1981–85
5.4 94.6 100.0
1986–90
4.8 95.2 100.0
1991–95
8.8 91.2 100.0
1996+
6.1 93.9 100.0
Sistan &
Baluchistan
Total
5.5 94.5 100.0
Before 1976
3.7 96.3 100.0
1976–80
8.1 91.9 100.0
1981–85
8.2 91.8 100.0
1986–90
14.9 85.1 100.0
1991–95
24.1 75.9 100.0
1996+
34.9 65.1 100.0
Yazd
Total
14.6 85.4 100.0
While education levels are much higher for this cohort than for earlier cohorts, especially for
women, job opportunities may be restricted because of the within-cohort competition.
Competition with young men in the labour market may see the entry of young women into
paid employment being more muted than it might otherwise have been. The labour market
competition may also promote delayed child-bearing leading to an expectation of further
falls in cross-sectional fertility rates.
It is interesting that, in Gilan and West Azarbaijan, the percentage of women who used
contraceptive before the first birth declined for the marriage cohort of 1976–80 and then
increased for later cohorts. This is probably due to the effects of the 1979 Revolution as
explained earlier.
22 Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Peter McDonald and Meimanat Hossein Chavoshi
Fertility preferences
a) Mean ideal number of children for a couple
Table 15 shows some measures of the fertility preferences of Iranian women in the four
provinces. The numbers reported to be desired at the time of marriage show an expected fall
across time, however, the fall is much more muted than the actual fertility decline. This can
be interpreted to mean that:
1. the older cohorts had many children that they did not want suggesting an unmet need for
family planning, or
2. the older cohorts have rationalized their response to this question in the light of the
subsequent fall in fertility.
Whichever meaning is taken, the older generation is expressing that the number of children
that they had was too high, and this is confirmed by the fact that the numbers they give as
‘too many’ tend to be above the number they actually had themselves. This means that the
older generation today would be supportive of the smaller family ideals of the younger
generation. This is confirmed by their statement of the number of children that is most
appropriate for couples today which is generally similar to that of younger cohorts. For
younger cohorts (married since 1980), the average number wanted at marriage is similar to
the number considered to be appropriate for couples today suggesting that, on average,
couples are having the number they would like to have.
Even for the most recent marriage cohort, fertility preferences in Sistan & Baluchistan
remain considerably higher than in the other three provinces suggesting that the higher
fertility in that province is likely to remain evident for some time. Higher fertility in Sistan
& Baluchistan should be interpreted according to the cultural and social-economic context
of the province. Sistan & Baluchistan is the least developed province in the country. The
majority of the people are Sunni sects of Islam who mainly speak Baluchi. Although both
ethnicity and religion may have some influence on fertility, it is hard to control and separate
the impact of ethnicity/religion on fertility, even using multivariate analysis. The Baluchi in
Sistan & Baluchistan have a considerable degree of contact with the Baluchi in Pakistan’s
province of Baluchistan with cross-border marriages being common. Among Pakistan’s
Baluchi, however, the education level of young women remains low and family planning
knowledge is not as advanced as it is across the border in Iran. Hence, the cross-border
influence may keep the fertility level of Iran’s Baluchi higher than it would otherwise have
been as wives tend to move to the husband’s household.
Changes in Family, Fertility Behavior and Attitudes in Iran
23
Table 15 Mean number of desired children at the time of marriage and at the time of
survey, and mean number of children considered as too high and too low,
by province and marriage cohort, IFTS 2002
Province
Marriage
cohort
Number of
children
wanted at
time of
marriage
Currently
appropriate
number of
children for a
couple
How many
children are
too many?
How many
children are
too few?
Before 1980s
2.9 2.0 4.5 1.4
1980s
2.4 1.9 4.5 1.6 Gilan
After 1980s
1.9 2.0 4.1 1.4
Before 1980s
3.4 2.5 4.9 1.8
1980s
2.6 2.2 4.3 1.3
West
Azarbaijan
After 1980s
2.0 2.1 4.2 1.5
Before 1980s
5.4 4.1 6.8 2.0
1980s
4.4 3.2 7.0 2.7
Sistan &
Baluchistan
After 1980s
3.8 3.7 6.5 2.7
Before 1980s
3.9 2.5 5.3 1.4
1980s
3.2 2.3 5.0 1.3 Yazd
After 1980s
2.4 2.2 4.7 1.2
b) Distribution of the ideal number of children for a couple
Table 16 shows the distribution of women by their preferred ideal number of children for a
couple at the time of the survey. Three main findings emerge. First, in all provinces, except
in Sistan & Baluchistan, the majority of women indicated that 2 children is the ideal number
for a couple today. In Sistan & Baluchistan only 40 to 45 per cent of each marriage cohort
considered 2 children as ideal while 40 per cent believed that 4 children or more would be
ideal for a couple. Second, there are no considerable variations in ideal family sizes across
marriage cohorts, particularly in Gilan and West Azarbaijan provinces. Third, relatively
high percentages of all marriage cohorts in Gilan preferred one child as the ideal number of
children for a couple. This is very high for the Iranian context and, indeed, for any context,
and may have implications for the future of fertility in Iran.
If women indicated one child, or two-or-more children as an ideal number of children for a
couple, they were then asked the reason why they prefer “N” number of children as an ideal
number for a couple. Respondents were given thirteen options, and were asked to identify
these options according to three priorities. Women who preferred one child overwhelmingly
referred to rising family costs as the main reason for preferring such a low ideal family size
with quality of children as a secondary reason (results not shown here). The pattern of
responses was similar for those women who thought two children was the ideal number of
children for a couple with rising family costs being by far the most prominent reason for the
choice of this ideal (around 60 per cent). Quality of children (measured by ‘to rear children
better’ and ‘to provide better facilities for children’) was the other important reason
expressed for indicating two children as ideal. Reasons such as child survival, parent’s
welfare and progress and provision of a sibling were also expressed, but by relatively small
24 Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Peter McDonald and Meimanat Hossein Chavoshi
numbers of women. For the relatively small proportions who stated four or more children as
ideal, the reason that children would look after their parents in old age also emerged.
In summary, the interesting finding from this section is the ideational change in Iranian
society evident by the fact that ideal family size/fertility is similar among young and older
cohorts. It is also notable that even those who had higher fertility considered two children as
the ideal number of children for a couple, but that in Gilan, a relatively high preference for
one child has emerged. Overwhelmingly, low expressed ideals were associated with
economic motivations related to the perceived costs of children.
Table 16 Ideal number of children by province and marriage cohorts, IFTS 2002
Ideal number of children for a couple
Provinces
Marriage
cohorts
1 2 3 4+
Total
Before 1980s
17.9 70.5 9.4 2.2 100.0
1980s
18.5 74.3 5.2 2.0 100.0 Gilan
After 1980s
22.4 71.5 5.0 1.2 100.0
Before 1980s
4.0 70.4 17.1 8.5 100.0
1980s
5.7 73.0 14.9 6.4 100.0
West
Azarbaijan
After 1980s
10.3 73.2 14.5 2.0 100.0
Before 1980s
2.5 39.9 14.5 43.0 100.0
1980s
2.0 43.0 15.3 39.8 100.0
Sistan &
Baluchistan
After 1980s
3.6 46.9 11.8 37.6 100.0
Before 1980s
2.7 60.8 23.3 13.1 100.0
1980s
3.0 68.9 21.2 6.9 100.0 Yazd
After 1980s
7.2 73.8 14.3 4.6 100.0
Attitudes toward childbearing / value of children
Table 17 shows the distribution of women agreeing with different statements representing
various (traditional vs liberal) views regarding children. In general, women in all provinces,
except Sistan & Baluchistan, expressed liberal views about childbearing. For example, the
majority of women disagreed with the following statements regarded as traditional values:
• Parents should have many children for their old age time
• Having many children will increase family income
• Having many children is a good help in housekeeping
• Having many children does not affect their education level
• If people had more income they would have more children
• The couple’s independence increases as the number of their children increases
• Birth control is an interference in God’s affairs
• Parents feel alive after death when they have many children
• Having many children increases family and ethnic power
Changes in Family, Fertility Behavior and Attitudes in Iran
25
On the other hand, the vast majority of women agreed with the following “liberal”
statements:
• Having many children is an obstacle for the parents’ interests
• Having many children creates psychological stress for parents
• Parents cannot properly raise many children
• Having many children creates financial pressure for the family
The other interesting finding is that there were not many differences between the marriage
cohorts but, where there were differences, the direction was towards more liberal values
among the more recent marriage cohorts. Only in Sistan & Baluchistan were conservative
views expressed by relatively large numbers but, even in this province, the emphasis on
liberal views was higher than on the conservative. For example, most women in Sistan &
Baluchistan disagreed that ‘having many children would increase the family’s income’.
Consistent with the stated reasons for low fertility ideals, there was strong agreement with
all statements that expressed the view that children were an economic disadvantage and
strong disagreement with statements that they were an economic advantage. However, non-
economic values related to small family size also received substantial agreement including
those related to the level of stress upon parents, the obstacle that children present to parents
pursuing their own interests and the raising of ‘quality’ children. The traditional views that
birth control is an interference in God’s affairs, that many children represent greater power
for the family or the ethnic group, or that more children means ‘life after death’ were
supported by only about one fifth of respondents in Gilan, Yazd and West Azarbaijan.
Support was stronger for these statements in Sistan & Baluchistan but was still lower than
50 per cent.
The overall impression from these results is that a norm of low fertility has spread across
Iran and it has been adopted by both older and younger generations. The older generation
who themselves had very high fertility are now almost equal in their strong support of a low
fertility norm with the younger generation. That it is the norm itself that is important is
evidenced by the fact that it is explained in broad terms that cover economic, social and
psychological dimensions and that relate to the impacts of high fertility on both the children
and the parents. Furthermore, the expression of the norm in terms of attitudes and values is
consistently interpreted across the provinces included in the survey.
26
Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Peter McDonald and Meimanat Hossein Chavoshi
Table 17 Distribution of women agreeing with various statements on childbearing and value of children by marriage cohorts and
province, IFTS 2002
Agree with:
Province
Marriage Cohort
Parents
should
have
many
children
for their
aging
time
Having
many
children
is an
obstacle
to the
parents'
interests
Having
many
children
will
increase
the
family's
income
Having
many
children
is a
good
help in
house
keeping
Having
many
children
creates
psychol
ogical
stress
for
parents
Paren
ts
cann
ot
prope
rly
raise
many
child
ren
Having
many
children
does not
affect their
education
level
Having
many
children
creates
financial
pressure
on the
family
If people
had
more
income,
they
would
have
more
children
A couple's
independe
nce
increases
as the
number of
their
children
increases
Birth
control is
an
interferenc
e in God's
affairs
Parents
feel
alive
after
death
when
they
have
many
children
Having
many
children
increase
s family
and
ethnic
power
Before 1980s
22.7 88.9 15.0 26.7 96.1 89.7 13.6 97.5 20.2 16.0 28.6 23.9 15.9
1980s
16.6 90.2 11.7 17.6 97.9 93.0 11.2 97.4 15.7 11.2 21.5 15.0 10.1
After 1980s
14.3 91.3 11.7 22.8 97.4 94.0 13.1 96.4 17.3 10.2 15.6 15.7 8.6
Gilan
Total
17.4 90.3 12.6 22.3 97.2 92.5 12.7 97.0 17.6 12.1 21.2 17.8 11.2
Before 1980s
25.1 85.7 18.6 31.2 94.7 88.5 17.7 97.6 16.4 17.2 27.4 27.3 29.1
1980s
24.2 86.5 19.3 28.3 96.2 91.9 14.1 96.9 16.3 10.6 24.1 22.6 25.2
After 1980s
19.7 86.5 18.5 26.9 96.6 93.4 15.9 97.3 14.0 12.2 18.6 20.4 20.9
West
Azarbaijan
Total
22.8 86.3 18.8 28.6 95.9 91.4 15.8 97.2 15.4 13.2 23.0 23.2 24.8
Before 1980s
55.9 71.8 47.3 59.3 87.9 85.3 34.4 88.7 43.0 42.5 47.7 46.4 46.9
1980s
48.3 70.2 41.9 56.3 88.0 85.3 33.8 90.6 39.1 31.3 36.4 39.3 41.7
After 1980s
47.8 70.5 38.9 49.0 86.7 83.9 31.8 90.1 39.2 30.5 40.2 38.0 41.7
Sistan &
Baluchistan
Total
50.0 70.7 41.9 53.9 87.4 84.7 33.1 89.9 40.1 33.7 40.8 40.5 43.0
Before 1980s
29.8 87.7 14.7 29.3 96.4 93.3 9.6 97.3 18.9 18.7 36.5 22.6 15.0
1980s
25.6 82.3 14.5 21.4 93.6 93.0 12.1 97.5 18.2 15.0 31.6 19.6 13.1
After 1980s
19.5 83.0 9.9 21.6 97.0 96.4 7.2 97.8 14.1 10.0 23.2 15.6 10.0
Yazd
Total
25.0 84.4 13.0 24.2 95.7 94.3 9.5 97.5 17.0 14.6 30.4 19.3 12.7
Changes in Family, Fertility Behavior and Attitudes in Iran
27
It is also interesting that women do not think that increased governmental financial support
would encourage couples to have more children (Table 18). More than 70 per cent of
women in Gilan, more than 80 per cent in West Azarbaijan and Yazd, and more than 60 per
cent of women in Sistan & Baluchistan disagreed with the statement that higher government
financial support would encourage families to have more children. On the other hand, they
believed that government regulations and punishments for having more than two children
would encourage families to control their fertility (results not shown here).
Table 18 Attitudes of women regarding governmental support to increase fertility by
province and marriage cohorts, IFTS 2002
Would governmental financial support encourage
couples to have more children? Province
Marriage
cohorts
Yes No Do not know Total
Before 1980s
20.9 75.5 3.6 100.0
1980s
21.7 74.2 4.1 100.0 Gilan
After 1980s
24.2 72.4 3.4 100.0
Before 1980s
12.8 83.5 3.7 100.0
1980s
14.5 82.4 3.0 100.0
West
Azarbaijan
After 1980s
15.6 82.4 2.0 100.0
Before 1980s
37.4 58.1 4.5 100.0
1980s
35.9 60.5 3.5 100.0
Sistan &
Baluchistan
After 1980s
35.1 60.6 4.2 100.0
Before 1980s
18.4 80.7 0.9 100.0
1980s
16.4 83.5 0.1 100.0 Yazd
After 1980s
13.6 86.0 0.3 100.0
Gender roles
Table 19 shows the percentages of women who agreed with a range of statements about
employment of women outside the home. In general, the expressed attitudes indicate much
more support for the employment of women outside of the home than is actually the case at
present. Again, it seems that attitudes are running ahead of behavior suggesting considerable
potential for future change. Women in all four provinces were especially likely to agree that
women should work for financial autonomy or to support their family financially. The
economic motivation for social change is again prominent. However, except in Yazd, a
majority also considered that women should work outside the home for the social
participation that this would entail. Conversely, only 30–40 per cent of women agreed that
‘a woman should not work outside the home, her duty is housekeeping’ and ‘employed
women cannot rear their children well’. In general, these attitudes did not vary much across
provinces or across generations.
28 Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Peter McDonald and Meimanat Hossein Chavoshi
Table 19 Distribution of women agreeing with various statements about employment
of women outside the home by marriage cohorts and province, IFTS 2002
Women agree with:
Province
Marriage
Cohort
A woman
should not
work outside
home, her
duty is
housekeeping
Employed
women
cannot
rear their
children
very well
Employed
women
have less
children
Women
must be
employed
for
financial
autonomy
Women
should
not
work
outside
home
like
men
Women
should
work
outside
home to
support
family
financially
Women
should work
outside
home for
social
participation
Before 1980s
41.1 38.0 83.8 79.0 41.3 85.1 59.1
1980s
31.4 28.9 73.7 73.9 39.5 84.5 53.7
After 1980s
31.7 31.7 73.0 70.3 37.1 80.6 54.9
Gilan
Total
34.3 32.6 76.3 73.9 39.1 83.1 55.7
Before 1980s
44.9 41.6 69.3 75.2 43.9 71.3 64.9
1980s
40.4 36.9 60.1 74.1 41.5 75.1 64.7
After 1980s
40.1 34.5 59.0 68.3 41.7 66.8 60.0
West
Azarbaijan
Total
41.6 37.4 62.4 72.3 42.3 70.9 63.0
Before 1980s
42.1 45.4 78.6 76.7 39.9 73.8 63.6
1980s
36.0 35.7 73.5 74.6 34.3 69.2 62.8
After 1980s
37.8 35.8 70.1 67.0 39.2 68.3 60.6
Sistan &
Baluchistan
Total
38.3 38.1 73.3 71.9 37.8 70.0 62.1
Before 1980s
40.8 44.3 80.2 75.8 48.4 66.3 48.4
1980s
33.0 38.3 69.1 70.4 42.1 59.1 45.1
After 1980s
22.8 30.8 61.8 66.2 31.0 68.2 45.1
Yazd
Total
32.2 37.8 70.4 70.8 40.4 64.7 46.2
Other data from IFTS (results not shown here) show that decisions within marriage about
purchase of food, household equipment or gold/jewels tend to be cooperative decisions of
the husband and the wife and that the cooperative model is more prominent among the more
recent marriage cohorts than among earlier cohorts. Respondents were also asked if they had
ever been beaten by their husbands
6
. Again, across marriage cohorts from older to younger,
there was a considerable shift away from women reporting that they had been beaten. There
was also a shift away from women reporting that they had a ‘general fear’ of their husband.
All of these changes can be interpreted as indicating an increase in the level of gender equity
in couple relationships within the family. Other questions that were more related to the
external role of women, especially questions related to the woman’s freedom of movement
outside the household, showed less change across the generations. Nevertheless, among the
most recent marriage cohort, only 35–40 per cent of married women in Gilan and Yazd say
that they must ask their husband’s permission before going to a health center or doctor, and
6
The question by asking ‘ever’ would be answered in the affirmative by women who had had only one
experience during their marriage. The impression gained from the responses may tend therefore to exaggerate
the incidence of violence within marriage. Nevertheless, there were substantial falls in the reported incidence
from older to younger cohorts as would be expected if levels of gender equity were improving in association
with increased levels of education.
Changes in Family, Fertility Behavior and Attitudes in Iran
29
only 14 per cent (Gilan) and 33 per cent (Yazd) are actually accompanied when they go to
the health center or to the doctor. Results for these measures of freedom of movement were
much more conservative for West Azerbaijan and Sistan & Baluchistan.
Conclusion and discussion
This paper was set up to examine family change and its impacts on fertility decline in Iran.
Various data sources such as the 1986 and 1996 Censuses as well as the IDHS were used to
estimate the level and trends of fertility over the last three decades in Iran. We also use data
from the Iran Fertility Transition Survey conducted in 2002 to deepen our understanding on
the fall of fertility in Iran.
The results showed that the Islamic Republic of Iran has experienced a phenomenal fertility
decline in recent years. The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has declined from around 7.0 births
per woman in 1979 at the time of the Revolution to around 2.1 in 2000. The fertility decline
has been pervasive and observed in all provinces and rural and urban areas of Iran. Age at
marriage has risen in recent years, and has clearly depressed fertility. However, the impact
of nuptiality change was relatively low as only 15 percent of the change of fertility from
1985 to 1996 was explained by nuptiality. Thus, the task of explanation of the substantial
decline in fertility in Iran and in each of the four provinces becomes largely a question of
why fertility within marriage has fallen. Clearly, a very substantial increase in the use of
fertility control methods has been the immediate cause of the decline of fertility in marriage
especially in the 1990s. However, the commencement of the fertility decline preceded the
re-establishment of the nation’s family planning program in 1989. This gives rise to the
hypothesis that social and economic change and associated changes in attitudes and values
may have precipitated the fall in fertility and increased the demand for family planning
services. This paper provides a preliminary assessment of the association between the
fertility trend and the transformation of attitudes and values toward family and fertility.
Different periods of social change represented by the three time periods of marriage were
used to study these changes in Iran. During the period prior to the 1980s, the first national
family planning program was implemented by the Shah, the legal minimum age at marriage
for boys and girls was increased, and various programs were implemented to improve the
status of women in the society. During the 1980s, the first decade following the Islamic
revolution, the country experienced a phenomenal socio-political change. This was also the
period of the Iran-Iraq War and the suspension of the family planning program. On the other
hand, the egalitarian nature of the revolution led to considerable improvements in education
and health systems, and there were major changes in rural areas of Iran. The third period
covers the 1990s. During this period the country experienced a more pragmatic approach to
social and economic issues and the family planning program was revived. The election of
the Khatami Government in 1997 heralded a period of democratization when various
political groups formed and the society experienced profound shifts on political issues.
The result has been a complex mosaic of individual and family change and persistence in the
various provinces. The most important individual change in recent decades is the increased
level of education across cohorts stimulated by the egalitarian nature of the revolution.
30 Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Peter McDonald and Meimanat Hossein Chavoshi
There was a significant shift from illiteracy and low levels of education among older cohorts
towards much higher levels of education for younger cohorts in all of the provinces under
scrutiny. Education brings with it the confidence to hold and express one’s own views and
increased ability to engage with the modern world and its ideas. There would seem to be
little argument that the more liberal attitudes and values expressed by women in the IFTS
study were related to this trend in education levels. Nevertheless, in most cases, women
from the older generations also expressed relatively liberal values and attitudes to questions
about numbers of children. Thus, it has to be argued that a pervasive low fertility norm has
swept Iran taking with it all generations and all provinces. There remain differences between
provinces but the strong expectation is that provincial differences will diminish and this is
already evident in recent fertility trends. Economic motivations for changed values in
relation to numbers of children or to work of women outside the home were very strongly
expressed everywhere. Thus, there is strong support for the hypothesis that fertility decline
has been driven by a desire for economic improvement at the household level perhaps with a
reduced capacity to achieve this end. What is all the more interesting is the notion that this
economic motivation arose at the heart of the early years of the Islamic revolution. The
egalitarian nature of the revolution and its concern with the improvement of health services,
education and living standards for all appears to have engendered economic aspirations and
value changes that extended beyond the immediate aims of the revolution.
At the level of the family, several dimensions of family life have remained fairly constant,
while others have changed dramatically. Fertility behavior and attitudes of women have
changed across birth and marriage cohorts over the last two decades. The ideal number of
children has declined considerably across cohorts and in all provinces, even among those
older cohorts who have had higher fertility. A preference for two children is common in all
provinces. The emergence of ‘one child’ as an ideal number of children for couples in Gilan
is very interesting and has many policy implications for the future of fertility in Iran. The
timing of marriage has also shifted towards higher ages, particularly for girls. There is
considerable shift in women’s attitudes towards girl’s marriage, as women of all cohorts
prefer their daughters (or girls in general) to continue their education rather than marrying
earlier.
Change within the family has tended to be stronger at the level of the individual couple. This
includes decisions about the numbers of children that they have and attitudes about gender
roles within the couple relationship. As attention shifts from the internal or intimate to the
external or public aspects of family, change becomes more muted. Marriage with relatives
remains common and there has been little change across time. Married women still lead
relatively restricted lives and are still largely ‘subject’ to their husbands in their public lives,
and actual participation in work outside of the home remains low. However, in all of these
public dimensions of family, attitudes have shifted and are running ahead of behavior.
Change in the external dimensions of the institution of the family remains relatively
constrained because of its public nature; at the private or intimate level, change has been
more possible.
Changes in Family, Fertility Behavior and Attitudes in Iran
31
In summary, fertility decline in Iran appears to have been driven by rising economic
aspirations leading to the inculcation across Iran of a small family size norm. The rapid fall
of fertility was then facilitated by increased levels of education, greater gender equity within
the husband-wife relationship and by the provision by the Iranian Government of affordable
and reliable access to family planning through the country’s extensive public health system.
This is a preliminary investigation of factors that may have been associated with the fertility
decline in Iran. Clearly, a more thorough, multivariate analysis will be required subsequent
to the findings of this paper.
References
Abbasi-Shavazi, M.J. 2002a. Recent changes and the future of fertility in Iran, paper
presented at the Expert Group Meeting on Continuing Fertility Transition,
Population Division of the United Nations, March 13–18, New York.
Abbasi-Shavazi, M.J. 2002b. Convergence of fertility behaviours in Iran: Provincial fertility
levels, trends and patterns in Iran, Social Science Journal (Persian), 18: 201–231.
Abbasi-Shavazi, M.J. 2001a. Below replacement fertility in Iran: progress and prospects,
paper presented at the workshop on: Low Fertility in Advanced Countries: Trends,
Theories and Policies, Tokyo, 21–23 March.
Abbasi-Shavazi, M.J. 2001b. Assessment of the own-children method of estimating fertility
in Iran using 1986 and 1996 censuses, Social Science Journal (Persian): 16(2): 105–
135.
Abbasi-Shavazi, M.J. 2001c. Fertility revolution in Iran [in French], Population & Société,
INED, November 373: 1–4.
Abbasi-Shavazi. 2000a. National trends and social inclusion: Fertility trends and
differentials in the Islamic Republic of Iran, paper presented at the IUSSP
Conference on: Family Planning in the 21
st
Century, 61–21 January, Dhaka.
Abbasi-Shavazi, M.J. 2000b. Effects of marital fertility and nuptiality on fertility transition
in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Working Papers in Demography, No. 84, Canberra,
The Australian National University.
Abbasi-Shavazi, M.J., McDonald, P., Hosseini Chavoshi M. and Kaveh Firouz, Z. 2003.
Study of womens’ views on fertility behaviours using qualitative methods in Yazd
province, Journal of Social Sciences [Persian], 20: 169–203.
Abbasi-Shavazi, M.J., Mehryar, A., Jones, G. and McDonald, P. 2002. Revolution, war and
modernization: Population policy and fertility change in Iran, Journal of Population
Research, 19(1): 25–46.
Aghajanian, A. 1995. A new direction in population policy and family planning in the
Islamic Republic of Iran. Asia-Pacific Population Journal 10(1): 3–20.
Aghajanian, A. and Mehryar, A.H. 1999. Fertility transition in the Islamic Republic of Iran:
1967–1996, Asia-Pacific Population Journal, 14(1): 21–42.
Amani, M. 1970. Births and fertility in Iran, Division of Population Research, Institute for
Social Studies and Research, University of Tehran, Tehran.
Axinn, W.G. and Thornton, A. 1993. Mothers, children, and cohabitation: the
intergenerational effects of attitudes and behavior, American Sociological Review, 58:
233–246.
32 Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Peter McDonald and Meimanat Hossein Chavoshi
Azimi, H. 1981. Population growth and its needs, Budget and Planning Organization,
Department of Human Resources and Social Planning, Tehran.
Knodel, J. 1983. ‘Natural fertility: age patterns, levels, and trends’. In Rodolfo A. Bulatao
and Ronald D. Lee (eds.), Determinants of Fertility in Developing Countries. New
York: Academic Press, pp. 61–102.
Ladier-Fouladi, M. 1996. ‘La transition de la fécondité en Iran’. Population 51(6): 1101–
1128.
Mehryar, A.H., Roudi, N. Aghajanian, A. and Tajdini, F. (1998). ‘Evaluation and
attainments of the family planning program in the Islamic Republic of Iran’.
Working paper, Tehran: Institute for Research on Planning and development.
Mehryar, A.H., Delavar, B., Naghavi, M., Hossseini, M. and Farjadi, G. 2001. Iranian
miracle: How to raise contraceptive prevalence rate to above 70% and cut TFR by
two-thirds in less than a decade? Paper presented at the IUSSP Conference, 18–24
August, Salvador.
Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. 2002. Study of Iranian Values and Attitudes:
Findings from the survey in 28 provinces, Tehran, Iran.
Ministry of Health and Medical Education. 2002. Iran Demographic and Health Survey,
Tehran, Iran.
Mirzaie, M. 1998. Swings in fertility limitations in Iran. Working Paper in Demography,
Australian National University, Canberra.
Morgan, S.P. and Waite, L.J. 1987. Parenthood and the attitudes of young adults, American
Sociological Review, 52: 541–547.
Smith, P. 1983. ‘The impact of age at marriage and proportions marrying on fertility’.
In Rodolfo A. Bulatao and Ronald D. Lee (eds.), Determinants of Fertility in
Developing Countries. New York: Academic Press, pp. 473–531.
Thornton, A., Chang, J.S., and Lin, H.S. 1994. From arranged marriage to love match, In A.
Thornton, and Lin, H. (eds.) Social Change and the Family in Taiwan, University of
Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 148–177.
Thornton, A. 1994. Truncation bias, In A. Thornton, and Lin, H. (eds.) Social Change and
the Family in Taiwan, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 148–177.
Thornton, A. and Lin, H. 1994. Social Change and the Family in Taiwan, University of
Chicago Press, Chicago.
Thornton, A. 1989. Changing attitudes toward family issues in the United States, Journal of
Marriage and the Family, 51: 873–893.
Thornton, A. and Young-Demarco, L. 2001. Four decades of trends in attitudes toward
family issues in the United States: the 1960s through 1990s, Journal of Marriage
and Family, 63: 1009–1037.
Thornton, A. and Freedman, D. 1982. Changing attitudes toward marriage and single life,
Family Planning Perspectives, 14(6): 297–303.
Tsuya, N.O., and Mason, K.O., 1995. Changing gender roles and below-replacement
fertility in Japan, In K.O. Mason, and A.M. Jensen (ed.), Gender and Family Change
in Industrialized Countries, Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp: 138–167.
Vanden Heuvel, A. and P. McDonald. 1994. ‘Marriage and divorce’. In D. Lucas and
P. Meyer (eds.), Beginning Population Studies. Canberra: The Australian
National University, pp. 69–90.
