Fertility in Tehran City and Iran: Rates, Trends and Differentials

This study used data largely from the 2012 Tehran Survey of Fertility Intentions, conducted in a representative sample of households having one married women aged 15-35, and partly from the 2009 Tehran Survey of Fertility, the 2000 Iran Demographic and Health Survey, and the 2011 Iran census to estimate recent levels and trends of fertility and its differentials in Iran and the city of Tehran. This study estimated the total fertility rate for women aged 15-49 living in Iran in 2011 at 1.6 children and for women residing in urban and rural areas at the rate of 1.5 and 1.9 children per woman, respectively. Also, the total fertility rate estimated for married women aged 15-35 living in the city of Tehran increased slightly from 1.2 children per woman in 2000 to 1.4 in 2009 and then plunged to 1.1 children in 2012.  The estimated total fertility rates for women having a high income level and living in the upper districts of Tehran (0.7 births) were lower than the rates estimated for those with low income (1.5 births) and those residing in the low districts of Tehran (1.3 births). On average, women aged 35 had 1.8 live-born children, while employed women and those with post-secondary education had on average 1.5 children, lower than the numbers among unemployed women (1.9 children) and those with incomplete secondary education (2.4 births). This study identified women with low fertility that makes the country’s fertility level remain stubbornly low.