Iran's birth rate plummeting at record pace - Up Front

Humanist, Jan-Feb, 2003 by Janet Larsen

Iran's population growth rate dropped from an all-time high of 3.2 percent in 1986 to just 1.2 percent in 2001, one of the fastest drops ever recorded. In reducing its population growth to 1.2 percent, a rate only slightly higher than that of the United States, Iran has emerged as a model for other countries that want to accelerate the shift to smaller families.

Historically, family planning in Iran has had its ups and downs. The nation's first family planning policy, introduced in 1967 under Shah Reza Pahlavi, aimed to accelerate economic growth and improve the status of women by reforming divorce laws, encouraging female employment, and acknowledging family planning as a human right.

Unfortunately, this promising initiative was reversed in 1979 at the beginning of the decade-long Islamic Revolution led by Shiite Muslim spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini. During this period, family planning programs were seen as undue Western influences and were dismantled. Health officials were ordered not to advocate contraception. During Iran's war with Iraq between 1980 and 1988, a large population was viewed as a comparative advantage, and Khomeini pushed procreation to bolster the ranks of "soldiers for Islam," aiming for "an army of. 20 million," according to Doug Schwartz's article entitled "Iran: Islam Embraces Contraception" published on the Foreign Wire website.

This strong pronatalist stance led to an annual population growth rate of well over 3 percent. United Nations data show Iran's population doubling from 27 million in 1968 to 55 million in 1988, according to the World Population Prospects.' The 2000 Revision.

During postwar reconstruction in the late 1980s, the economy faltered. Severe job shortages plagued overcrowded and polluted cities. Iran's rapid population growth was finally seen as an obstacle to development. Receptive to the nation's problems, Khomeini reopened dialogue on the subject of birth control. By December 1989, Iran had revived its national family planning program. Its principal goals were to encourage women to wait three to four years between pregnancies, to discourage childbearing for women younger than eighteen or older than thirty-five, and to limit family size to three children.

In May of 1993, the Iranian government passed a national family planning law that encouraged couples to have fewer children by restricting maternity leave benefits after three children. It also called for the Ministries of Education, of Culture and Higher Education, and of Health and Medical Education to incorporate information on population, family planning, and mother and child health care in curriculum materials. The Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance was told to allow the media to raise awareness of population issues and family planning programs, and the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting was entrusted with airing such information. Money saved on reduced maternity leave funds these educational programs.

From 1986 to 2001, Iran's total fertility--the average number of children born to a woman in her lifetime--plummeted from seven to less than three. The United Nations projects that by 2010 total fertility will drop to two, which is replacement-level fertility.

Strong government support has facilitated Iran's demographic transition. Under the current president, Mohammad Khatami, the government covers 80 percent of family planning costs. A comprehensive health network made up of mobile clinics and fifteen thousand "health houses" provides family planning and health services to four-fifths of Iran's rural population. Almost all of these health care centers were established after 1990. Because family planning is integrated with primary health care, there is little stigma attached to modern contraceptives.

Religious leaders have become involved with the campaign for smaller families, citing them as a social responsibility in their weekly sermons. They also have issued fatwas, religious edicts with the strength of court orders, that permit and encourage the use of all types of contraception, including permanent male and female sterilization--a first among Muslim countries. Birth control, including the provision of condoms, pills, and sterilization, is free.

One of the strengths of Iran's promotion of family planning is the involvement of men. Iran is the only country in the world that requires both men and women to take a class on modern contraception before receiving a marriage license. And it is the only country in the region with a government-sanctioned condom factory. In the past four years, some 220,000 Iranian men have had a vasectomy. While vasectomies still account for only 3 percent of contraception, compared with female sterilization at 28 percent, men nonetheless are assuming more responsibility for family planning.

Rising literacy and a national communications infrastructure are facilitating progress in family planning. The literacy rate for adult males increased from 48 percent in 1970 to 84 percent in 2000, nearly doubling in thirty years. Female literacy climbed even faster, rising from less than 25 percent in 1970 to more than 70 percent. Meanwhile, school enrollment grew from 60 to 90 percent. And by 1996, 70 percent of rural and 93 percent of urban households had televisions, allowing family planning information to be spread widely through the media.