Investigating the reasons for changing the age pattern of rural marriage

Changing the age pattern of marriage and its rise, along with its consequences at individual, familial and social levels, has become one of the most important social issues in recent decades. This study investigates the effective factors in changing the patterns governing the age of marriage of villagers in Ilam city. The present study is of applied type and in terms of method, survey and descriptive level. The statistical population of the present study included all men and women in the age group of 18-40 years in the villages of Ilam city. A sample size of 375 people was selected through Morgan table. In this study multi-stage cluster sampling was used. A researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect information for this study; its validity was measured by content validity and the reliability was calculated by calculating Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Descriptive statistical indicators used are: frequency tables, percentage, mean, standard deviation to make the results more objective; on the other hand, in order to prove or disprove the research hypotheses, Pearson correlation method was used. Findings showed that the components of people's expectations, marriage phobia due to the presence of social anomalies, family decision-making power, modernity and materialism, access to spouses, continuing education and youth psychological status have an impact on youth marriage age changes. The extracted findings indicate that increasing the age of marriage as well as the tendency to live single and turning away from marriage as a problem and social harm has an increasing trend in society that planners and officials need to pay attention to this important issue.