Determinants of Kurdish Women’s Sub-Replacement Fertility

Evidence suggests that the total fertility rate in Iran has decreased from 7 children per woman in 1979 to 1.7 in 2006. This decline in fertility has taken place simultaneously in all geographical regions and reproductive age groups, and human population growth not only is not rising, but it is declining. The purpose of this article is to find out the determinants of sub-replacement fertility among Kurdish women in Sanandaj, Iran. The data were collected from 382 married women with husbands selected from a total population of 66996 individuals and analyzed. The sampling method was a combination of multi-stage, random and systematic random clustering methods. The results show that the total fertility rate is 2.07 children per woman. More than 90 percent of the respondents stated that having a child is an obstacle to their psycho-emotional self-protection and the enhancement of their social empowerment, and they had a strong tendency to reflective low childbearing. Also, the results of multivariate linear regression indicated that 34.6% of total female fertility changes were dependent on female fertility ideals, socio-economic status and gender inequality in the family institution. Among the variables that only had a direct effect on the dependent variable, women's fertility ideals had the highest effect (0.411%) on fertility, which means that the more the fertility ideals of women, the higher their fertility.