نشریه مطالعات جمعیتی
سال هفتم شماره 1 (پیاپی 13، بهار و تابستان 1400)

The aim of this paper is to assess the importance of marriage and its determinants with the focus on sexual attitudes and experiences among females.   For this purpose, a survey was conducted among 1055 female college students of government and private universities in Tehran in 2018-2019. The data was collected using an online questionnaire and multistage cluster sampling method.  The mean age of the girls was 21.2 years (SD=3.32) and 76% had a marital intention, while significant percentage (60%) were uncertain about their marrying within next 5 years and 62% preferred continuing university education rather than getting married. Marriage was important for only about 51% of girls.  Some liberal sexual attitude was observed among female college students. Despite that premarital sexual experience was significantly associated with the lower importance of marriage in bivariate analysis, multiple regression models showed that the most important determinants of marital importance among girls is religiosity, conservative sexual attitude regarding the importance of virginity, and lower optimistic views towards marital opportunity. According to the findings of this study, apart from providing economic condition for marriage and family formation among youth, social policies on marriage need to make education and marriage more compatible for girls and consider attitudinal changes among new generation.

In recent years, the era of Iranian youth celibacy has become longer. The different trend of marriage postponement in different regions of Iran has led to the significant regional diversity in marriage timing between the provincal and district-level of the country. The purpose of this study is to examine the status and determinants of youth celibacy in the districts of Iran. The unit of analysis is 429 districts in Iran according to 2016 census. For this purpose, the proportions of single people in the districs of Iran has been studied, focusing on the ages of 25-39 years for men and women. According to the findings, some districs in the west and southwest of the Iran have the highest and in contrast, the center and northeast of the country have the lowest single proportion for both sexes. Celibacy ratios are inversely related to literacy ratio and activity rate and has a positive relationship with unemployment ratio. Independent variables explain 51% and 27% of the spatioal differences in the celibacy status of men and women aged 30-39 in Iran, respectively. Balanced national development policies to eliminate districts inequality can facilitate youth marriage and reduce regional differences in youth celibacy in Iran.

Reduction of marriage duration is one of the social problems of modern times. In recent decades, the traditional structure of the family has changed along with the increase of women’s literacy and education, as well as their participation in labor market,. This research aims to study duration of marriage to divorce (DMD) among Kurd, Turk and Fars ethnic groups. The research method is post-event. This study explore the effect of women's autonomy on the DMD in districts with a Persian, Turkish, and Kurdish ethnic majority. The study population includes 78 districts at the 2016 Census. Data adopted from the Statistical Center of Iran (SCI) and National Organization for Civil Registration (NOCR). Findings show that the relationship between ethnicity and the DMD is statistically significant. Multivariate analysis indicates that in districts with a Turkish ethnic majority, the DMD decreased by 0.189 years or 69 days per unit of increase in women's autonomy. In contrast, among Persians and Kurds, changes in the DMD is independent from women's autonomy. This may be resulted from different cultural values and norms among the studied ethnic groups. Doing qualitative researches in order to understand the meanings behind these relationships is necessary.

This study aimed to investigate the value changes related to women's work and activity and the value of children in rural and nomadic field in Gilangharb city emplying Bourdieu approach. This study was conducted using a qualitative approach with a sample size of 38 participants. The sampling method was purposive and qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the interviews. Qualitative content analysis of the interviews revealed 4 main categories that the category of generational change in women's values from productive / economic to emotional / consumer in both rural and nomadic fields was similar.. The other two categories compised of   the emotional and consumption value of children in the rural areas and the economic and productive value of the children in the nomadic field. Accordingly, the results show that in rural and nomadic areas, young women and girls are losing economic and productive value and achieving emotional and consumption value compared to the previous generation. Decreasing the number of children in the family was evident in both fields. In the nomadic field, children considered as the agent of production and economic power, and they work with their parents to secure their future, while in the rural field, children have acquired emotional value and have lost their economic and productive value.

At present, internal migration, as an important driver of population change has contributed as a replacement of fertility and death in many countries, and is considered as the main trend in the patterns of human settlement within and between countries. In addition to internal migration, due to the selective process of migration, it leads to redistribution of different age groups in the country and create changes in the age structure of the population in both the origin and destination of migration. In this regard, this article examines the effect of internal migration on changing the population age structure of the counties in Iran using secondary analysis of the 2011 and 2016 census data. The results indicated the greatest change happens in the age composition of 15-29 years. The results of the bivariate Moran's test showed that there is a spatial correlation between the levels of development and age structure changes due to migration. In fact, migration leads to a rise in the share of the young population in more developed counties, and a reduction of young population in the less developed counties. As a result, internal migration can lead to increased regional inequalities by changing the composition of the young population, which is an essential factor of development.

The migration networks is a form of spatial movement of population groups between two relatively distant regions. This population mobility is achieved by expanding a set of relationships between individuals at the origin and destination. The purpose of this article is to investigate the role of migration networks in shaping the flow of migration from Shahrekord to Isfahan. The research method is qualitative and purposive sampling method was employed. In this study, considering the criterion of theoretical saturation, 25 immigrants who have resided in Isfahan for at least two years have been interviewed in 2019. The data were coded and categorized by content analysis method. Immigration networks included kinship networks, family networks, friendship networks, and local immigrant networks. Networks facilitated the migration, and individuals decided to migrate by identifying, then connecting and relationship with networks. Networks have reduced the time required to adapt to the destination by providing a variety of information, financial, social, emotional and occupational support and reducing immigration costs. In this way, networks helps people to realise their intention and decision by facilitating and accelerating the migration process.

Due to the complexity of studing the emotions and feelings of immigrants, the migration process and resulting emotions have been understudied. This is a qualitative study and the content analysis method has been used. Interviews with 65 participants continued until the conceptual saturation. Participants were selected from psychology clinics in 5 districts of Tehran using purposeful sampling Participants were selected from first- and second-generation immigrants aged 25 to 45 years. The results showed that immigrants' failure experiences were associated with the consequences such as decreased social participation, feelings of discrimination and rejection, feelings of helplessness, stress, decreased sense of belonging, and social isolation. The exclusion and erosion of immigrants' social capital creates a sense of alienation, distancing, fear, and an inability to integrate socially. Finally, the results of this study showed that immigrants use strategies such as distancing, forced tolerance, re-migration to protect themselves from feeling defeated.

This paper seeks to identify the contexts and grounds affecting the repatriation migration of university professors to the country during the last ten years using the grounded Theory approach and indepth interviews. The study population comprise of the university faculty members who have had the expereince of return migration to Iran. The sampling was conducted using purposeful and snowballing until theoretical saturation. The findings showed that the causal factors affecting the return migration include economical factors (welfare problems in relation to their salary and high expenses of life abroad), social factors (the feeling of social injustice, the vague status of employment, the feeling of social despair and the lack of social capital) and personal and motivational factors (family belonging and the sensation to improve the scientific level of Iran). Apart from the above mentioned causal factors, the underlying factors of "psychological" (psychological problems and emotional belongings of the individual) as well as "job-scientific" factors (the possibility of employment and job repulsion), along with interventional factors such as "lack of financial capacity" as well as associated policies (immigration and occupational) play a role in the occurrence of this phenomenon, which indicates the multidimensionality and intertwining of structural, environmental and agent factors which inlfuence together the return migration.

One of the important issues in demography is helping to adopt appropriate and effective policies dealing with low fertility. This topic has a special importance in Iran due to the attainment of below-replacement fertility. Using analytical methods, some studies have been conducted to analyze low fertility in recent years. In this paper, the studies explaining low fertility using analytic method are critically reviewed. The absence of a linear, uniform and homogeneous relationship between the independent variables affecting low fertility and lack of deep understanding of the complex system of lower fertility are evident in previous studies. Agent-based modeling is introduced as a technical tool and a suitable solution developed based on computer programming. This approach can easily resolve the limitations associated with analytical methods. The ability of agent-based modeling in making bridge between micro and macro levels as well as the capability of complex system modeling are the strengths that can be employed in explaining the complex system of low fertility.

In populations in their final stage of mortality transition, one of the most important questions is the level of the geographical inequality in the life expectancy index. To investigate these inequalities in Iran, the role of age groups and causes of death in increasing life expectancy at birth in the province of Gilan compared to Sistan and Baluchestan were analyzed using the modified data of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education and Arriaga decomposition method,. The results showed that infant mortality with a rate of about 1.3 years in both sexes had the greatest impact on the difference in life expectancy at birth in the two provinces. In addition, cardiovascular diseases in women and unintentional accidents in men with  a rate of about 3 years and 1.8 years, respectively, are the most important cause of increased life expectancy at birth in Gilan compared to Sistan and Baluchestan (due to a younger pattern of mortality due to this disease in Sistan and Baluchestan). The results show that despite the transition of mortality throughout Iran, there are still significant inequalities in the mortality of the considered provinces in Iran and this has placed them in different stages of mortality, epidemiological and health transition. A fair distribution of development facilities at the geographical level can reduce these gaps and increase life expectancy in Iran as a whole.

Many of  health and sociology scholars believe that a significant portion of health is influenced by social and cultural factors. This approach, especially in the last decade, has become more prominent and has led researchers in the field of sociology to focus on interdisciplinary health studies. Due to the importance of health and its related behaviors, the present study investigated its sociological aspects to behaviors such as healthy eating, sports activities, stress management, avoidance of substance use and tobacco as health-based behaviors with a sociological-approach. This research is a quantitative study using a survey and the study population comprise of all women in the age group of18-29 years and the sample size was 400 people.The findings in the descriptive section show that the  greatest rate of health-related behaviors is related to low and moderate. Inferential findings also confirmed all hypotheses. Based on the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that those behaviors of individuals that can have positive or negative effects on their health,  are associated with social and cultural factors. Hence, it is necessary to examine health beyond its psychological dimension, and especially policymakers need to pay greater attention to this issue.

In today's world, health has become an important issue in social and demographic studies. The main purpose of this paper is to identify the indigenous-immigrant differences in the health-oriented lifestyle pattern of the elderly in Qarchak city, 2020. The research method is survey and the data were collected from 383 elderly people aged 60 and older using a researcher-made questionnaire technique. The results showed that 16.7 % of the natives and 18.4 % of the immigrants have a low health-oriented lifestyle. Overall, the majority of Indigenous people (69.5%) and immigrants (66.5%) have a moderately healthy elderly lifestyle. According to the results of bivariate analysis, men have a higher health-oriented lifestyle compared to women. Elderly people with higher education and those with a spouse has a higher health-oriented life style. There is a statistically significant difference between leisure activities, smoking and nutrition among Iranian and Afghan seniors.The results of multivariate analysis showed that the citizenship does not have a significant effect on the health-oriented lifestyle of the elderly by controlling other demographic and contextual variables. But the years of education, gender and number of children of the elderly have a positive effect on health-oriented lifestyle, respectively.The health-oriented lifestyle of the elderly depend to the social, cultural and economic conditions regardless of nationality.