نشریه نامه انجمن جمعیت شناسی ایران
پیاپی 32 (پاییز و زمستان 1400)

It has been at least three decades since the beginning of the decline in fertility and consequently the decline in Iran's population growth rate but the effect of these changes, especially those regarding changes in the population age structure on Iranian economy are still unknown. The purpose of this study is to measure and analyze the net and direct effect of these changes on Iran's economic growth, i.e., the first demographic dividend. For this purpose, the conventional method in "National Transfer Accounts" and the age profiles of consumption and labor income based on the estimates of the "National Transfer Accounts of Iran" have been used. The first demographic dividend estimates reveal three distinct but related phases. It is negative in the first and third phases due to the increasing population of children and the elderly. The first demographic dividend becomes positive only in the middle phase (the transition phase). According to the results of this study, the share of older ages in the lifecycle deficit of Iranians will increase from about 10 percent to more than 50 percent by the middle of the fifteenth century SH. Favorable effects of changes in the population age structure of Iran as the demographic dividend will end by the first decade of the century, however demographic changes will open other windows of demographic dividend (productivity growth) whose realization requires socioeconomic planning and policy-making.

This paper aims to study the relationship between population and politics in Iran. This research acknowledges the dialectic relationship between population and politics and attempts to study the role of changes in the size and structure of the population on politics.  The main method of this study is the documentary method. According to the results, the population of Iran has affected political changes in different ways at different time periods, in terms of changes in size as well as age structure. These impacts came out of institutional channels. Population growth alongside an uneven regional and district development led to the Islamic Revolution. During Iraq-Iran war, the growth of population size alongside a very young age structure due to the growth rate of earlier decades provided a strong force for an eight-year resistance. After the war, the pressure resulted from the large population size on governmental as well as non-governmental institutions led to a major shift in population policy which is considered as population control. Several years later and currently, the structure of the controlled population imposed other forms of pressure on the government whose management requires scientific and realistic policies.

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.

Sexual health is one of the critical but less considered aspects of general health, especially for women living in developing countries. At the same time, sexual and reproductive health is regarded as human and social right in recent era. Sexual health experiences include those beliefs, attitudes, and behavior which are generally learned and social in their nature. Present study aimed to scrutinize underlying factors of sexual health among married women by the use of qualitative method and Grounded Theory Approach. To this end, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 26 married women aged 20-50 in Tabriz City, taking principles of maximum diversity and theoretical sampling. The collected data were analyzed with three-phase; open, axial, and selective coding scheme. Beside of introducing sexual health as a social problem, results showed that, sexual health could be understood under the core category of Torus, i.e., constraint. Main axial extracted codes were; awareness/socialization, institutional health dysfunction, gendered sexual attitude, health formalism, culture of silence, tradition/fatalism, lack of social support, biological/psychological, and economic Toruses. These constraints in various aspects, could impede married women from access to needed sexual health knowledge and practice. Absence of sexual health can brought about many threats at personal, familial, and societal levels.

Marriage of young people has been delayed in recent decades, following the alterations resulting from modernization, industrialization and major changes in economic, social and cultural structures. Its social harms and impact on fertility decline have made marriage delay as one of the most important issues in macro-level policies in Iran. Several studies have examined the factors associated with delayed marriage so far. This paper explains and categorizes the results of these studies by conducting a systematic review of papers that have been published on this subject during the last 10 years (1390 to 1400 SH and 2010 to 2021 AD) in Iran and the world. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the factors related to delayed marriage were examined in 30 studies and 10 categories were identified, including economic factors, social factors, place of residence, race, demographic factors, lifestyle, psychological factors, family background, religion and ethnicity. The most common determinants of delayed marriage are increased education and economic factors. The results of this study can provide appropriate solutions for families, officials and statemen to design appropriate plans for building a society with the right age at marriage by identifying effective factors. This will help to maintain family and increase fertility.

The present study focuses primarily on childlessness which is recognized as one of the most important demographic characteristics associated with fertility and childbearing patterns in modern family and contemporary world. Although childlessness existed in the past, it is growing fast in the contemporary societies in the 21st century and its growth is projected to continue, leading to an increasing proportion of childless couples in future. The literature review indicates that childlessness has not yet been given sufficient attention in the existing literature in Iran. The present research sits amongst the first studies at which not only childlessness is given central focus and specific attention, but also both people ‘having no child’ and people ‘wanting no child’ are simultaneously taken into account. According to the results of this study, childlessness still remains as an insignificant observation in Iran: not only there is almost no preference for childlessness, but also the proportion of couples with no child is low. However, the results also show some concerns and challenges associated with a high level of age threshold for childlessness that can substantially increase the probability of biological childlessness due to postponing childbearing to older ages. In conclusion, the results of this study support the fact that the prospect of childlessness pattern in Iran will overwhelmingly depend on the existence and extent of adequate planning and comprehensive policies in the macro level of “state and government” particularly regarding job opportunities and economic openness in order to facilitate marriage and childbearing.

The aim of this study was to identify the experience of employed mothers from maternity leave and its impact on fertility decisions. The research approach of this study is qualitative. The sample consists of 25 employed mothers who experienced maternity leave, were selected through purposive sampling with maximum variety in terms of age, number of children, position, type of contract and determined based on the theoretical saturation level. The data collection method is in-depth interview and the analysis method is thematic analysis based on Brown's approach. The core category is "relatively contradictory relationship between maternity leave and fertility", which arises from the two themes of "timely childbearing" and "limited and conditional fertility increase capacity". Based on the results, implementing maternity leave and increasing its duration has provided an opportunity to have children at the right time and prevent long delays, but due to the causal chain of childbearing and numerous institutional barriers, it is not enough to achieve fertility ideals and increase the number of children. Maternity leave cannot increase the number of children per se and it is necessary to provide appropriate socio-economic conditions for childbearing and to adopt a set of supportive programs and policies, particularly a broad access to child care as well as labor market flexibility.

Childbearing is one of the human needs. In some cases, couples are not able to have children naturally and need medical help. A group become fertile by artificial insemination and another group does not benefit from this God’s blessing, which can cause certain psychological and family problems. The purpose of this research was the comparison of marital conflict between infertile, fertilized by artificial insemination and naturally fertile couples. The research method was causal-comparative and the statistical population included all couples who visited the hospitals and fertility and infertility clinics of Tehran city. The sample included 50 infertile couples, 50 fertilized couples by artificial insemination and 50 naturally fertile couples who visited Arash Women's Hospital in Tehran between May and June 2022 and were selected using the available sampling method. The Kansas Marital Conflict Scale was used to collect data. The results of the multivariate analysis of variance showed that there was a significant difference between infertile couples (primary and secondary), those fertilized by artificial insemination and naturally fertile ones in terms of marital conflict; Marital conflict was higher among primary infertile and fertile couples by artificial insemination than secondary infertile and naturally fertile couples. Based on this research, infertility and inability to have natural fertility affects marital relationships and makes couples prone to marital disputes and conflicts.

The main aim of this study was to identify the past and current status of economic participation, employment and unemployment rates by sex in different provinces of Iran during the last 30 years. The research was conducted using the exploratory analysis and the secondary data. The main source of data was Iranian censuses during the period of 1986-2016. The results showed remarkable provincial differences in unemployment rate during this 30-year period. Despite fluctuations in the rates in different years, we always observed high female unemployment rates and regional imbalances. In addition, the gender gap and inequality in the country's labor market have not moderated. According to the regression analysis, the variable of unemployment rate had a negative (-0.694) and significant effect on economic participation rate in 2016. When the variable of human development was included in the model, it showed a direct and significant effect on the economic participation rate (+0.511). The amount of variance explained by independent variables was estimated as 40%. The effect of the development of provinces on the employment rate of women was not statistically significant. Regional characteristics and the issues of land acquisition have particular importance in developing employment policies. It is necessary to consider the social and cultural aspects besides the economic components across provinces, especially the less developed and border ones.

Retirement is an inevitable part of working life for some working people, especially those working in government centers, which can lead to changes in their daily life pattern and affect their health. This effect is not the same on all people, being different based on demographic, social and cultural components. This Research has investigated the health-oriented lifestyle of the retirees of the Airline of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Homa) using a survey and a sample size of 321 people. This research has investigated some aspects of healthy life, including alcohol and smoking, eating habits, proper nutrition and the use of medical recommendations. The variables of marital status, social capital, family conditions, satisfaction and lack of mental illness during retirement have a significant relationship with health-oriented lifestyle and explains 35% of its variations.

This article aims to identify successful aging and past lifestyle of the elderly under study to help to improve the quality of life of the elderly population. Research data were collected based on quantitative survey using a questionnaire. 341 elderly people aged 60 and over who lived in 22 areas of Tehran were considered to be the sample. The results showed that the respondents who had a better and healthier lifestyle at middle age (40-60 years), led a more successful old age in general as well as in physical, psychological and social aspects. Based on the results of linear regression analysis, respondents with the following characteristics have a more successful old age in general and in social aspects: being married, being more concerned about their health than others between ages 40 and 60, having more positive attitude and orientations and getting access to more facilities and cultural resources. These characteristics are more common among older men than women. 29% of the research sample, which is a high and remarkable figure, have low and very low successful old age. In order to help to improve the situation of such people, this type of elderly should be identified at first. Then, in order to have a successful old age and enhance the quality of their life, effective measures should be taken by developing and providing necessary trainings and adopting appropriate policies and measures.

The outbreak of coronavirus has brought new attention to health-related behaviors. Health literacy can be considered as one of the most important indicators affecting health-related behaviors. In the present study, an attempt was made to investigate the relationship between health literacy dimensions and health-related behaviors against the coronavirus. For this purpose, 385 people were surveyed from the 18- to 65-year-old population of Shiraz by the cluster sampling method and using a questionnaire. The findings showed that the highest health literacy score of the respondents was related to the dimension of understanding. The findings also showed that health-related behaviors against coronavirus were at a high level among about 35% of respondents. The multivariate regression analysis showed that the variables of age, sex, activity status, understanding and decision-making dimensions of health literacy had a statistically significant effect on health-related behaviors. Health-related behaviors increase with age and are more common among women than men. Health-related behaviors increased significantly with an increase in health literacy in both dimensions of understanding and decision-making. Promoting the health literacy of people in the society in its various dimensions can be effective in controlling and preventing the outbreak of infectious diseases.