Economic Insecurity, Marriage and Fertility Ideals: A Study among Mothers and Children Generations in Sanandaj District

from an economic perspective. Newer theories arose from the microeconomics of fertility have attributed the low fertility ideals to the economic insecure conditions and a response to the gap between economic realities and expectations. Specifically, the adherents of risk aversion theory have conceived the delay in marriage and low childbearing ideas as individual's behavioral management mechanism related to their economic conditions or expectations. This study has investigated the relationship between economic insecurity and the marriage and fertility ideals among mothers and younger generation (their unmarried youth children) in Sanandaj district. The data was derived from "Sanandaj's Fertility Ideals and Behaviors Survey (SFIBS) in 2014" and a sample of 210 mothers and 210 unmarried youth children of them in survey's households were considered. The results showed both difference in background characteristics and marital and fertility ideals of the two generations, and significant relationship between economic insecurity and marital and fertility ideals. Moreover, the results of multivariate analyses showed that economic insecurity, after control of effect of age, residence location and education explains the low marriage and fertility ideals among the two generations. According to these results, to prevent greater reduction in fertility ideals and resulted very low fertility, population policies need to be introduced based on the economic situation of young people in marriage age and couples in childbearing ages.  Finally, the prioritization of supportive programs that ensures economic security for young people is utmost important to facilitate the realization of the marriage and childbearing ideals.