Challenges of New Pronatalist Population Policies and Programs in Iran: A Qualitative Study in the City of Isfahan

Following the rapid fertility decline in Iran, a turnaround toward pro-natalist population policies were accepted by the government in 2010s. Subsequently, for the realization of these policies, the law of "Rejuvenation of the Population and Support of the Family" was announced in November 2021. In the first steps of implementation of this law, it is now an appropriate time for population studies to investigate the ways that people and audiences evaluate challenges that implementation of this law faces as well as its strengths and weaknesses. Monitoring population policies and programs can assess their prospective success and prove useful in revising and correcting programs and designing more accurate and effective interventions. Based on the Grounded Theory approach, this paper collected data from a field study in Isfahan city using in-depth interviews with 30 men and women. After open, axical and selective coding, fifteen main categories were extracted from the data and the core category of "inadequate incentive to motivate reluctant people" was identified. The results show that childbearing as a private issue, insufficient and worthless incentives, ambiguity in policy-making from approval to implementation and temporary and periodical policies has led to institutional and non-institutional distrust. These factors have made it difficult and complicated to align the will of people with policies. The success of pro-natalist policies depends on the mutual trust between people and the government.