AN ASSESSMENT ON THE IMPACT OF FAMILY POWER STRUCTURE ON FERTILITY RATE IN TEHRAN CITY

In the last few decades,Iran has experienced sharp fertility decline.Studies indicate that women have a major role in childbearing.This paper examines the relationship between family power structure and fertility behavior in the Tehran city. The data is collected information from around 400 women who are married and have at list a child in the Tehran city. The results of the bivariate analysis showed that the relationship between accessing to valuable resources(education, employment, economic capital),women's mental autonomy, division of household labor, attitudes to gender inequality and family power structure with fertility is insignificant. The results of the logistic regression analysis indicated that among all different variables, accessing to valuable resources and division of household labor are the strong determinants of dependent variable; as fertility rate reduces with the rise in accessing to valuable resources and decline in partnership in division of household labor. Women’s autonomy is the other important variable affecting fertility rate; as fertility rate reduces with the rise in Women’s autonomy. Given the results of this study, population policies in Iran in order to facilitate childbearing for couples should provide opportunities in which women could be able to continue their economic activity, have their social participation, maintain and strengthen their power in family as well as promoting childbearing.