ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF FACTORS AFFECTING FERTILITY IN IRAN, FOCUSING ON INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

From an economic point of view, fertility rate relates economic growth by affecting labor supply. While fertility is affected by different economic and social factors, and due to its human-based nature, changes with the changes of society, over time. During the process of globalization and the development of new technologies, Iran has made changes in people's lives, especially in improving women's roles, including elimination of gender gaps and increasing the women participation, that can affect fertility rates. The evaluation of the above paradigm from an economic point of view, is on the agenda of this paper. To do that, we assessed ICT impact, along with other factors, on fertility rate in Iran by using provincial data over 2008-2014 period.
The results imply that, there is a reverse relationship between fertility rate and women's labor force participation, while other economic factors had no significant impact on fertility. Also the development of information and communication technology (contrary to expectations) has positive effect on fertility. It can be due to ICT capability in promoting women public awareness and empowering them from the field of activity in cyberspace and less need for physical presence, along with cultural factors.