Family planning in Iran
Iran had a comprehensive and effective program of family planning since the beginning of the 1990s.[1] While Iran's population grew at a rate of more than 3% per year between 1956 and 1986, the growth rate began to decline in the late 1980s and early 1990s after the government initiated a major population control program. By 2007 the growth rate had declined to 0.7 percent per year, with a birth rate of 17 per 1,000 persons and a death rate of 6 per 1,000.[2] Reports by the UN show birth control policies in Iran to be effective with the country topping the list of greatest fertility decreases. UN's Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs says that between 1975 and 1980, the total fertility number was 6.5. The projected level for Iran's 2005 to 2010 birth rate is fewer than two.[3]
In late July 2012,
History
Pre-revolutionary era
According to Dr Malek Afzali, Iran's deputy minister for research and technology in the Ministry of Health, before the
The Tehran Declaration of 1967 claimed that family planning was a human right, and arranged for the creation of both a Family Planning Division as part of the Ministry of Health and a High Council for the Coordination of Family Planning. These programs were responsible for 2,000 nationwide clinics distributing forms of birth control[6]
Khomeini Era and pro-natalism
Following the creation of the Islamic Republic; family planning clinics of the Shah were dismantled "on the grounds that Islam and Iran needed a large population."[7] The Majlis passed many pro-natalist laws during this era, like the lowering of marriage age to nine years old for girls and fourteen years old for boys, the legalization of polygamy, the artificial inflation of birth control pill price from one hundred rials to one thousand rials per pack, and the creation of the Iranian Marriage foundation which provided newlyweds with furniture to ensure more people could get married and reproduce[8]
Iran's population boom started before the 1979 Islamic Revolution (in 1976 the
At one point in the 1980s estimates predicted that Iran's population would reach 108 million by the year 2006.
Rafsanjani era and decreasing natality
Following the war with
In 1993, Parliament passed further legislation withdrawing food coupons, paid maternity leave, and social welfare subsidies after the third child for government and para-government employees. The backlash to this law was severe and application of it remains limited.[13] Birth control classes were required before a couple could get married. Dozens of mobile teams were sent to remote parts of the country to offer free vasectomies and tubal ligations.[12]
By 2001, an Iranian condom factory - the first of its kind in the Middle East[14] - produced more than 70 million condoms a year, "packaged in French or English to suggest that they are imported", according to a foreign reporter.[12] By this time Iran's population growth rate had dropped from an all-time high of 3.2% in 1986 to just 1.2%, one of the fastest drops ever recorded.[15] In reducing its population growth to this level—a rate that is only slightly higher than that of the United States—Iran emerged as a model for other countries that want to lessen the risk of overpopulation. In 2007 Iran's Total Fertility Rate had dropped to 1.71 with a net out-migration of 4.29 ‰ (and population 65 M).
Explaining the change in religious doctrine on population during a birth control workshop in 1995, Deputy Health Minister Husein Malek-Afzali stated "Islam is a flexible religion".[12]
Reversal to pro-natalism
A call for a reversal of Iran's existing policy of "two children is enough" came in October 2006 due to perilously low fertility rates in Iran that had started to cause negative population growth as in other low-fertility countries.
I am against saying that two children are enough. Our country has a lot of capacity. ... for many children to grow in it. ... Westerners have got problems. Because their population growth is negative, they are worried and fear that if our population increases, we will triumph over them.[17]
Critics reacted by noting that Iran was struggling with surging inflation and rising unemployment, estimated at around 11%,[17] and that a population of 120 million could mean a shortage of fresh water limiting "the country’s domestic agricultural and industrial development options,"[18] and that some countries "triumph" over others because of superior "knowledge, technology, wealth, welfare, and security", not population size.[19]
Ahmadinejad's call for a higher birth rate reminded some of the demand of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 for an increased population, which was eventually reversed in response to the resultant economic strain.[17]
On 25 July 2012, Supreme Leader Khamenei stated that Iran's contraceptive policy made sense 20 years ago, "but its continuation in later years was wrong ... Scientific and experts studies show that we will face population aging and reduction (in population) if the birth-control policy continues."[4]
Deputy health minister Ali Reza Mesdaghinia, was quoted in the semiofficial
As of 2014, measures to reverse the declining birth rate include: replacing public-health slogans that used to praise “Fewer kids, better life” with billboards that show large, happy families juxtaposed with sad small families; cutting budgets for subsidized condoms and family planning; increasing already generous paternity and maternity leave; and seeking to enact a bill that would make
See also
- Health care in Iran
- Women's rights in Iran
- Demography of Iran
- Abortion in Iran
- Demographic transition
References
- ^ The Iranian miracle: The most effective family planning program in history? Archived 2019-04-02 at the Wayback Machine, 2019-03-21
- ^ MSN Encarta Encyclopedia entry on Iran - People and Society Archived 2009-10-28 at the Wayback Machine, CIA World factbook 2007. Archived 2009-10-31.
- ^ Iran tops world in birth control Archived 2017-06-27 at the Wayback Machine, payvand.com 04/17/09, access-date = 2010-03-23
- ^ a b c Iran urges baby boom, slashes birth-control programs usatoday.com 30 July 2012
- ^ "IRAN-IRAN: Focus on family planning". 24 April 2003. Retrieved 2010-03-23.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Moore, Richard (2008). "The Global Family Planning Revolution: Three Decades of Population Policies and Programmes". Bulletin of the World Health Organization.
- ^ Abrahamian, Ervand, Khomeinism : Essays on the Islamic Republic, Berkeley : University of California Press, c1993, p.140
- ^ Riddell, Katrina (2009). Islam and the Secularization of Population Policies. Burlington: Ashgate. p. 110.
- ^ Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Recent changes and the future of fertility in Iran, but reached its peak after the revolution figure 1
- ^ "Iran's Family Program is Succeding [sic]". Popline, the Population Institute's news service. June 1998. Archived from the original on 2021-06-20. Retrieved 2010-03-23.
- ^ Abrahamian, History of Modern Iran, (2008), p.184
- ^ a b c d Sciolino, Elaine, Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran, Free Press, 2000, 2005 (p.282)
- PMID 10765535.
- ^ "About us – Kayhan Bod". Archived from the original on 2021-01-28. Retrieved 2020-12-23.
- ^ Weiss, Kenneth R.; Mostaghim, Ramin (2012-07-22). "Iran's birth control policy sent birthrate tumbling". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Kassam, Ashifa; Scammell, Rosie; Connolly, Kate; Orange, Richard; Willsher, Kim; Ratcliffe, Rebecca (22 August 2015). "Europe needs many more babies to avert a population disaster". the Guardian.
- ^ a b c Tait, Robert (October 23, 2006). "Ahmadinejad urges Iranian baby boom to challenge west". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2010-03-03.
- ^ Prospects for Ahmadinejad’s Call for More Rapid Population Growth in Iran Archived 2008-11-29 at the Wayback Machine, Draft: 13 November 2006, p.4
- ^ Etemad-e Melli quoted in Wright, Robin, Dreams and Shadows : the Future of the Middle East, Penguin Press, 2008, p.323
- ^ Iran aims for baby boom, but are Iranians in the mood? Archived October 24, 2012, at the Wayback Machine|dailytimes.com.pk|November 15, 2012
- ^ Make more babies: Iran’s leaders are worried about their country’s declining population, economist.com.