Fertility Convergence in Muslim Countries

The aim of this paper is to describe the Muslim Countries differences in fertility transition during 1980-2005, and to study the role of family planning and national development programs on world fertility trends and convergences. This is a secondary analysis research. The statistical population includes 33 Muslim countries, a term referring to countries in which Muslims constitute at least 50 percent of the total population. The data is mostly taken from UNDP and United Nations Population Division for 2007 and 2008.The results show that Muslim countries experienced different fertility levels as compared with that of the world during 1980-2005. Moreover, Muslim countries varied remarkably in terms of timing of fertility transition, the pace of fertility reduction during the fertility transition period, attainment of replacement-level fertility, and continuing fertility decline. According to this study, fertility convergence in Muslim countries is a new phenomenon that appeared at the threshold of The 21st century. The results show that this phenomenon has been caused by the improvement in Human Development Index (HDI) and the spread of contraception in Muslim countries. Then, it is expected that more improvements in HDI and CPR lead to more convergence with global fertility levels and trends.