نشریه جمعیت
پیاپی 77-78 (پاییز و زمستان 1390)

The subject of this paper is assessing the attitude of pregnant women towards induced abortion. This phenomenon is the most important issue that threatens women's health. Women might have unsafe abortion due to child spacing or failure of contraceptive methods. Physical and mental influences of abortion on women who experience abortion, as well as cultural and social influences on formation or change of their attitude towards abortion, highlight the importance of abortion among women. The aim of this study is assessing the attitude of pregnant women towards induced abortion. In this study, the theories of supply and demand (Becker), attitude genesis (Krech and Crutchfield and Ballachey) and identity (Simon) were employed. This study was a survey and the instrument for data collection was questionnaire. The study population was women in their reproductive age in Tehran (1385). Sample size, was estimated to be 300 and quota sampling method was used. Findings show that there is not any significant relationship between age, level of education, employment, number of children, sex of children, type of contraceptive methods and attitude of pregnant women towards induced abortion. Multiple regression analysis shows that social class, religiosity, and the attitude of important others towards induced abortion and type of pregnancy are determinants of attitude of pregnant women towards induced abortion. In fact, more than 34% of changes in the dependent variable are explained by the four mentioned variables.

Statistics related to death events has revealed that delay of death registration existed since the inception of Civil Registration Organization (CRO) in Iran. In recent years, recognizing influential factors of delay in registration of death has become one of the major concerns of the CRO, hence researches has been conducted. This paper is based on one of these studies. The novelty of this study is that factors related to registration of death have been categorized into intra- institutional and extra- institutional factors with emphasis on current death rates in provinces. A descriptive method has been employed in this research and the study population comprised of employers of different offices of CRO, clients or attendees of offices of CRO, and authorities of institutions and organizations associated with CRO. The method of sampling was random simple sampling. The study instrument was questionnaires that were designed in three different types according to the respondents. One of the main results of this study was that, in moderate and rich provinces, the most important factor on enhanced death registration was advocacy, providing information and education on legal issues to people, from the perspective of authorities and informants of offices of CRO. Another important finding of this study was that in poor provinces, the most important factor in under registration of death was lack of an evaluation and control system on the procedure of generation of statistics. Based on perspectives of authorities of organizations associated with CRO, in total sample and in poor and moderate provinces, the most important factors in death registration was cooperation of hospitals and health houses with offices of CRO. From the viewpoints of authorities of CRO related organizations in rich provinces, the most important factor in death registration was provision of information on statistic of death for authorities.

Holding a technical and demographic view at the sex ratio, an extensive social issue can be recognized in developing societies. This social issue is nothing but, gender based discrimination against women in these societies. Missing females is a demographic term to illustrate such discrimination. In this cross sectional study, by using Coal method (1991), the number of missing females in census 2006 in Iran has been estimated. We have compared the sex ratio of actual population of Iran in 2006 with the Expected sex ratio, based on separated age groups. The expected sex ratio has been extracted from the 21st level of Regional model life tables and stable populations. Our estimation reveals that approximately 1,076,825 Iranian females were missing in 2006 census. In other words, if Iran had experienced unbiased sex ratios and normal pattern of mortality in all age groups, those females would have been added to the total number of population. Consequently, the actual population of the country would have reached around 71,572,607 people. Moreover, the impact of these missing females on the size and growth of Iran’s population in 2006 was examined, due to loss of their childbearing for all of the future generations. The results show that in general, only less than 18 percent (436,237 females) of these missing females were in their reproductive ages and more than 82 percent of them had passed their reproductive ages and have no potential for child bearing. Furthermore, Even if we assume that childbearing had been distributed equally among fertile females (18 percent), their disappearance from the population, and consequently their fertility reduction had not been a major demographic issue due to their comparative small size and, even for the next generations.

The Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) is one of the relatively new regional cooperation organizations that have brought together six Asian members of the ex-Soviet Union (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) with four major countries of the region (Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey). The main aim of this paper is to identify demographic transition and specifically highlight age structure transition and its pattern in the ECO Countries during 1950-2025. According to applied demographic paradigm, this study has measured the changes in age structure by applying the demographic indices such as population size, population growth rate and total fertility rate using a comparative approach. Data are taken from the UN Projection/Estimations in the five years ago which are comparable in terms of demographic experiences of diverse countries over the past half century. This comparative study showed that during 1950-1975 the high fertility rate led to relative increase of population under 15 years and decrease of various indices of ageing. However, all these countries, experienced signs of reduction of fertility over 1980-2010. Hence, with appearance of fertility control in this decade, the share of population under 15 years has reduced gradually, and the share of population aged 15-64 years has increased. Continuation of this trend in future can change the age structure of the population and reduce significantly the population under 15 years and lead the population into ageing. This study showed that six Asian members of the ex-Soviet Union have followed the population age structure of Russia with a rapid population ageing. These results will have implications for population policies in the ECO region.

The present article examines the urbanization patterns in Iran according to effective factors of urbanization and stake of each factor in urban growth. Natural growth, conversion of rural to urban, migration from rural to urban and merge of rural in the urban were all among effective factors in urban growth in various decades. Using census data conducted in various years, it was shown that during years, urban population have increase from 38percent to 66 percent and number of towns increased from 373 to 1000. The rate of urban growth has become 3.9 percent from 1335 until 1385, over the past 50 years. Important factors in this rate include: increase natural growth with 58 percent, conversion of rural to urban with 24 percent, migration from rural to urban with 14 percent and merge of rural in the urban with 2.7 percent. Urban population growth rate was about 2.7 percent between 1375 and 1385.

Migration and population redistribution in each region are among important factors that policy makers and community planners need to consider guiding and controlling the population of different economic sectors. The purpose of this paper is determining the role of migration in provincial population changes and recognizing immigrant and emigrant cities with respect to net migration rates. The study population comprises different cities of the province of Isfahan (1385). The study is descriptive– analytic and the intensity and migration flow of province has been mapped using Arc View software. The results of this study show that immigrants of the province has increased sharply during the 1375 to 1385, so as from among 505,736 immigrants of the province, 55.2% of them had came from other provinces of the country. Moreover, from among 435,441 emigrants left the province, 53.1% migrated to other provinces of the country. Paying attention to the net migration rate in cities of Isfahan province during 1375- 1385, the cities of Meymeh and Borkhar had the highest capability to absorb immigrants with a net migration rate of 52779 people. The city of Isfahan and Fereidan were recognized with the highest emigrant rate with net migration rates of - 20,256 and -10,970, respectively.

Main aim of this research is to understand and describe social quality of life of the veterans exposed to chemical weapons as vulnerable group of the society. The approach of this study is descriptive phenomenology and the study population includes all veterans exposed to chemical weapons in Tehran. The sampling method is purposive sampling. Nine In-depth-Interviews were conducted and the qualitative data were analyzed using Colaizzi proposed method. The finding showed that some of the problems in relationships between individuals, lack of understanding among some people of special conditions of veterans exposed to chemical weapons, conflict between medical team and veterans exposed to chemical weapons, social exclusion, lack of social participations, problem related to employment, education and marriage, all threaten their social health and decrease the quality of their life. Results of this study have clearly showed that there is still shadow of war above life of veterans exposed to chemical weapons. War has had undesired and devastating effects on people's health and welfare. As social intervention, it is possible to focus on intervention of clinical sociologist as advisors of the veterans exposed to chemical weapons and their families, as someone who develop plan of treatment and also those who are responsible to teach in hospital.