Lifetime Childlessness and Its Socioeconomic Correlates among the Married Women Living in Provinces with Very Low Fertility Rates in Iran

Objective (s): 

Childlessness in low fertility rate situation can be considered as a demographic problem. This study was attempted to investigate the permanent or lifetime childlessness among married women aged 40-49 living in Gilan, Mazandaran and Tehran provinces as provinces with very low fertility rates.

The data were derived from the 2016 census micro-data. Data analysis was performed in SPSS 20 using frequency tables, Chi-square test and logistic regression analysis.

The results showed that 4.4% of the women were permanent childless. Logistic regression analysis indicated that educational level as an individual characteristic as well as the type of home ownership and living area as the residential and household characteristics had a statistically significant effect on the odds of being childless.

The prevalence of lifetime childlessness was relatively low in population studied. Planning to improve the housing situation of households, especially among young households, might prevent the increase of the proportion of childlessness in the future.