Bar Ilan Univ. 08.05.2012

Reminder
Demographic transition process refers to the transition from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates as a country develops from a pre-industrial to an industrialized economic system

• First Stage: Total population growth rate is low but it is balanced due to high birth rates and high death rates
• Second Stage: Total population growth rate rises as death rates fall due to improvements in health care and sanitation. Birth rates remain high
• Third Stage: Total population is high, but it is balanced by a low birth rate and a low death rate.
Birth control is widely available and there is a desire for smaller families.

180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
1 2 3 4
Demographic Transition
0,25
0,2
0,15
0,1
0,05
0
1 first stage
2 3 second stage third stage
4 5 6 7 mortality rates(%)
8 9 birth rates(%)
10 11 12 13 14 net population growth(%)
15 16 17 18
Population Growth
5 6 7 population (t0=100)
8 9 10 11 12 13
Полиномиальная (population (t0=100))
14 15 16 17 18

• 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.
• Iran has experienced one of the most successful family planning programs in the developing world, with 64 percent decline in total fertility rate (TFR) between 1986 and 2000.
• Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data in 2000 indicated a TFR of 2.0 births per women and 74 percent contraceptive use among married women.
• Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is ruled under the law of
Islam and has a theocratic constitution.

Population, Total (2011 est.)
Population Growth
Birth Rate per 1,000 people
Death Rate per 1,000 people
Total Fertility Rate
Iran
77,891,220
1.2%
18.55
5.94
1.88
World
-
1.1%
19.3
8.3
2.52
Israel
7,848,800
1.9%
21.4
5.2
2.67
Afganistan
29,835,390
2.38
37.83
17.39
5.64

1900-1979 year
1900
1926
1941
1956
1966
1976
1979
Population Size in millions
10
11-12
14-15
19-20
25-26
34
37
Annual Growth Rate
(%)
>0.3
0.3-0.8
1.3-1.8
1.8-2.2
2.5-2.9
2.7-3.1
3.3
• Prevalence of a high crude birth rate of about 45-50 per thousand and, a total fertility rate above 7-8 children per woman
• Moderate mortality decline during the second quarter of the century, while accelerated during 1956-66.
• Demographic Awareness- An informal family planning program in early 1960’s
•

In the early years after the revolution there were no official population policies in the government’s agenda. New leaders viewed any population program as a Western tool to dominate the ‘‘Third World’’ countries and reduce the number of Muslims.
During the eight-year war with Iraq (1980-1988), the country was aiming for an ‘‘Army of 20 million.’’ Large families were a core revolutionary value; necessary to raise soldiers to defend the country.
In addition to higher birth rates:
 An influx of refugee immigrants from neighboring countries contributed to a rapid rise in the population growth rate
 Improved primary health care resulted in sharp declines in infant and maternal mortality rates between 1981 and 1986.

The National Five Year Socioeconomic
Development Plans: 1989-1994 and 1994-1999
Motivation: From 1976-1986, Iran's population increased at an average annual rate of 3.4%, and was 49.4 million by the end of the 10-year period.2 As a result, the government faced great demands for food, health care, education and employment.

The National Five Year Socioeconomic
Development Plans: 1989-1994 and 1994-1999
In 1989, the government along with the clergy introduced a family planning program with three major goals:
• encouraging women to space their pregnancies by 3-4 years,
• discouraging pregnancy among women younger than 18 and older than 35,
• limiting family size to three children

The National Five Year Socioeconomic
Development Plans: 1989-1994 and 1994-1999
To accomplish these objectives, the government developed the following strategies:
 Organizing educational programs on population issues for the general public
 Increasing married couples access to free contraceptives
 Developing the model of service delivery in urban and rural areas.
 Implementation of disincentives policies for families with more than three children: For example banning public benefits, such as paid maternity leave and social welfare subsidies to low-income women, for the birth of any child after the third .
 Government officials and religious leaders * have promoted family planning and smaller families
 Voluntary sterilization for Males an d Females (Vasectomy and Tubectomy)
* Despite the strong opposition to abortion, clerics have endorsed the government's family planning program.

• Increased educational opportunities for women: From 1976-1986, the female literacy rate almost doubled in both rural and urban areas.
• Increased job opportunities for women: Parents are expressing greater comfort with having their daughters work (in gender-segregated environments), and the government is promoting greater social participation for women
• Constant decline in Infant Mortality : Contraception probably could not have succeeded if there had not been a large decline in infant mortality.
Between 1976 and 1991, infant mortality decreased from a rate of 112 infant deaths per 1000 live births to a rate of 63.2, a decline of almost
50%.
• Economic Factors: Iran's continued dependency on oil revenues as the source of government funds, devaluations of the Iranian currency, removal of a number of subsidies on imported goods have all placed significant economic pressures on the Iranian family and have reduced their purchasing power.

 Fertility, Contraceptive Use and Family Planning Program Activity in the Islamic Republic of Iran, by
Akbar Aghajanian (1999)
 Case study: fertility decline in Iran, by Farnaz Vahidnia (2007)
 Prospects for Development and Population Growth in Iran, by Samuel S. Lieberman (1979)
 The Fertility Transition in Iran, by Marie Ladier-Louladi (1997)
 US Census http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/informationGateway.php
 UN Data Base http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/index.htm
and http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/index.htm
 World Bank http://databank.worldbank.org/ddp/home.do?Step=3&id=4
•