This chapter documents the changes in fertility in Iran since the 1970s. Own-children data from the 1986, 1996 and 2006 Censuses as well as the 2000 Iran Demographic and Health Survey (IDHS) enable analysis of single-year fluctuations of fertility over the last three decades. The chapter describes the levels, trends and patterns of fertility in Iran by rural and urban areas during the period 1972–2006. Then, provincial-level fertility trends and patterns are examined for both rural and urban areas. Next, attention is given to the attainment of below-replacement level fertility in various provinces of Iran. The results show that Iran experienced a modest decline in fertility during the 1970s followed by a rise in fertility between 1976 and 1984. The rise was, however, short lived. The total fertility rate began to decline from 1985 and has declined sharply since 1988 dropping from 5.5 in 1988 to the replacement level in 2000 and to 1.9 in 2006. The decline has been observed in all provinces and urban and rural areas of the country despite varying levels of socio-economic development. Several provinces and urban as well as rural areas of the country have experienced below-replacement level fertility.
Other versions of this chapter were published as Abbasi-Shavazi and McDonald 2005, 2006.
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Notes
- 1.
Ladier-Fouladi's (1997) estimates of fertility using birth registration data for the period 1966 to 1993 are based on the following assumptions and adjustments. First, the coverage of births occurring during the 1970s and 1980s was assumed to be incomplete. The author set out to correct the under-registration of births largely on the assumption that births not registered in the year of occurrence were registered in a later year except for those that may have died in the interim. The author had access to births registered in the year of occurrence and after the year of occurrence only for 2 years, 1984 and 1987. The extent of late registrations was estimated as the arithmetic mean for these 2 years and then this value was assumed to apply to the entire period 1966–1993. The distribution of births registered late was available by the age groups of the child at the time of the registration: age groups 1–4, 5–9 and 10+. These were broken up into single years using an assumed distribution and this assumed distribution was also applied across the entire period. The number of registered births was available for 1992 and 1993 but information on the births registered late were not available for these years. Specific adjustments were made for late birth registrations during these 2 years. Because there may have been deaths of children not registered in the year of birth, Coale and Demeny model life tables were used to convert the estimated numbers of late registrations by age into births the appropriate number of years before the late registration. The numbers of women at each age in each year were estimated based on the 1966, 1976 and 1986 censuses using the forward survival method. Finally, since the distribution of births by mother's age group was not available, Syrian fertility data was used to calculate the number of births by mother's age group for Iran.
- 2.
The level of TFR for 1966 varied between 7.9 (Ladier-Fouladi 1997), 7.7 (Amani 1970, 1996) and 7.2 (Mirzaie 2005), while that of the 1976 ranged from 7.2 (Ladier-Fouladi 1997), 6.6 (Padidar-Nia 1977), 6.3 (Mirzaie 2005) and 6.1 (own-children estimates). Padidar-Nia (1977, pp. 133–136) estimated that total fertility in Iran was 6.6 in 1974 (8.1 for rural and 4.5 for urban women). He argued that the large rural population, with high illiteracy and poor access to medical facilities, exposed Iran to conditions resulting in very high fertility, and thus, the fertility had been approximately unchanged during two decades – 1956 and 1974. The TFR for Iran in 1974 has also been reported as 6.0 (UNFPA 1998, p. 11).
- 3.
The number of provinces increased to 30 in 2004 but the focus on this paper is on fertility trends in the provinces included in the 1986 and 1996 Censuses and the 2000 IDHS.
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(2009). National and Provincial Level Fertility Trends in Iran, 1972–2006. In: The Fertility Transition in Iran: Revolution and Reproduction. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3198-3_3
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